


Lifespan

by svenskiovich



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Eventual mild smut, F/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svenskiovich/pseuds/svenskiovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a listless, rainy afternoon in London when he came to pick her up.  They immediately left the city behind, but the mood seemed to cling to the day--a patina of dull grey.~~My take on the fallout from series 8.  Most action takes place after Death in Heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you know where to find me

It was a listless, rainy afternoon in London when he came to pick her up. They immediately left the city behind, but the mood seemed to cling to the day—a patina of dull grey. It wasn’t a time they had agreed on, and he hadn’t really even intended to come, but the TARDIS had seemed to lean gently toward the 21st century, dragging on the edge of the vortex until he gave in. He expected to get an earful for it, but instead she just piled the papers that were scattered around her into one great stack and trooped with them to the TARDIS doors.

“Just promise me tea,” she told him firmly. “Tea and a quiet corner for grading, and I’m yours for the afternoon.” He should’ve pushed back against her presumption, but he didn’t. 

So it was really only his fault when they ended up standing in the pouring rain outside of an Oxford coffee house in 1785. 

“Think they’ll actually bring it?” she asked, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. He pulled his collar up in a vain attempt to stop the water from sluicing down his neck. 

“I did tell you not to say anything,” he grumbled. “They might never have noticed if you hadn’t jumped in and tried to _negotiate_.”

“Am I to understand,” she said lightly, “that the lynchpin of your plan to infiltrate Oxford’s most exclusive coffee house was them ‘not noticing’ I’m a woman?” She gave him that look that made him feel wrong-footed.

“It would’ve worked on Strax,” he muttered lamely.

Later it seemed daring and brilliant, as they stood dripping water onto the console room floor, because they did after all get their tea—dark and sludgy and probably smuggled from China by criminal gangs, but tea nonetheless. Clara grinned at him fiercely over her steaming, 18th-century mug.

“You don’t happen to have any giant, poofy coats, do you?” she asked.

They sat later on the lower floor beneath the main console, wrapped in massive fur coats that Romana had left in the wardrobe ages ago, huddled around a heat panel the Doctor had cracked open. Golden sparks floated up occasionally from the engine below, and he caught the ones that drifted too far in the semidarkness. 

“Really Clara,” he was saying. “You should be able to handle the walk from here to the wardrobe by now. You do so often insist that you’re a grown-up.” She gave him a look of pure disbelief.

“You’re joking. It’s a right fun house out there!” He considered the charge.

“I’d say that’s a matter of perspective.” She made an exasperated noise.

“It’s an _actual_ labyrinth, Doctor. It is a maze that makes mazes look dull.” He raised his eyebrows. “And I _know_ this because we went on field trip to a 30-acre corn maze, and when we were in the thick of it and all the chaperones were panicking, I thought, ‘Oh right, no problem, just a patch of plants and a few turns to keep track of.’” He allowed himself a smile in the semidarkness.

“Like I said. Perspective.”

“I should _not_ be relieved by a 30-acre corn maze.” He caught a spark that was drifting toward her.

“I’d call it a survival skill.” She just shook her head and nestled her mug carefully into the crook of her knee. It was her second, since she’d nicked his when he hadn’t expressed enough interest. “When do you think it was, though, that you stopped showing us around the TARDIS?” She tipped her head to one side, giving him a searching look. “I mean, I can see how it wouldn’t go with the whole man-in-black vibe to offer regular tours—“

“Tours,” he repeated flatly.

“You know: here’s the library, here’s the loo, here’s the cricket pitch, there’s your bedroom, watch out for the pool—that sort of thing.”

“You don’t have a bedroom,” he pointed out.

“I have a whole flat, actually, in London.” He leaned back onto a hand.

“I don’t need to offer tours,” he said shortly. “The TARDIS isn’t a natural science museum.” She gave him a look. “I’ll admit things can get a bit touch-and-go when she’s in crisis mode, but otherwise it’s just your basic multidimensional Fibonacci spiral.” She shook her head.

“Is that Time Lord for endless repeating corridors?”

“It’s human for the work of Leonardo Bonacci. Well, really, it’s all to do with a Sanskrit poetic meter—“

“Doctor. I know what a Fibonacci spiral is.”

“Well there you go. Shouldn’t be a problem for you getting around, then.” He deftly caught a gold spark just before it reached her hair, and she looked at his hand, startled. He thought about tapping her on the nose, but didn’t.

“Is the TARDIS actually _aiming_ for me now?” 

“Possibly,” he admitted. She picked up her tea again and held it protectively with both hands.

“You both used to be more user-friendly, you know. Back in the floppy celery days, I believe Peri at least got a proper tour.”

“You really shouldn’t know that,” he told her seriously. She shrugged, her shoulders lost in the folds of the massive fur coat.

“Twelve lives, remember?” He felt a small stab of guilt at the thought of it—multiple Clara’s still echoing through his timeline, saving his skin. 

“Yes but they weren’t _you_.” She shrugged again.

“Bleeds through, I guess.” 

_Do you regret it?_ , he wanted to ask. Instead he leaned back to release the spark into the darkness.

~~~

“You are the only mystery worth solving,” he had said to her once, with the TARDIS perched on the edge of apocalypse. It been imperative to him that she understood. He had wanted it to sink in, wanted it to matter.

The thought of it made him wince. It was painful, the way he had seen her before. A mystery to solve, an enigma in a tight skirt. He got the seething urge to slap someone—that endlessly cackling Robin Hood would’ve done the trick—every time he thought about it, but it was really himself he wanted to slap, or a facet of himself, and that wasn’t entirely possible, at least under usual circumstances. He had gotten far too comfortable. That was something this regeneration had brought back to him—the value of discomfort, of holding himself to a knife’s point. 

There were still mysteries, of course. Like why that dreary, ordinary life of hers mattered so much to her—corralling wayward students, shopping for those shoes with the tiny stilts on the ends, going on _dates_ , of all things—how was it that an hour of _sitting_ at a restaurant, free meal aside, was that exciting, that demanding of her attention? It made him question her taste on a fundamental level, really, when he had taken her to see the Crystal Falls on Tartarus and she had still been so flummoxed about her plans to consume a plate of food with P.E. That was hard to forgive. But when it came down to the sum of all things, how was it that that daily parade of nauseatingly repetitive activity made up _her_? Because she drew strength from it, he knew; it made her more confident, more caring. That was one of the things he had learned after the change, one of the first wonders he had seen with his new, old eyes: Clara as an ordinary, extraordinary girl. That she was unsolvable wasn’t a challenge; it was a fact. There were sudden profundities to her, twists and coils beneath the surface, but she wasn’t an enigma, and she certainly wasn’t _his_ enigma. His job was just to bring her along and watch her fly. 

He still stumbled into old habits, and he knew it, still set arbitrary tests for her or forced her to make impossible choices. It was just that he was the man of mystery now, to both of them, and he wanted so badly for her to _understand_. On his worst days, he feared it was the same, tired story all over again, how he fell in love with their humanity and then slowly robbed them of it. He always trusted himself with them, became so _present_ , lost in the pages of the story like he had never seen an ending. And that was pure hubris. For humans and Time Lords alike, there was always an ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	2. there's a tear in the fabric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one." -Marcus Aurelius

Danny had asked her once _why_ she traveled with the Doctor. It was a question that would have seemed hilariously out of place if he had asked it before—before the regeneration and the half-men and the lies. “Because he’s a lovely, daft fellow with a magic box,” she would’ve said then. “Because he would wait outside all night just to protect me. Because saving the world is what we do.” But it would be impossible to use those words now without a bitter uncertainty. And so she had stated what she felt to be the obvious. He was amazing. And she saw wonders. She still thought about that question on occasion, though, because she felt it still needed answering. And because she had the sneaking suspicion she had gotten off a little easy at the time, and that she might one day owe Danny a better explanation. The best one she could come up with, though, odd and vague as it was, was that the Doctor was the one great “if” of her life. They were always on the edge of somewhere vast and unexplored. The sputtering materialization of the TARDIS, the way he would watch her face when he knew she was onto something—they were an unanswered question. If, if, if. 

And she wasn’t even sure what that great “if” was about, really. There was, of course, the most obvious answer. Because she hadn’t been lying to Vastra—she really did have a pin-up of Marcus Aurelius as a fifteen-year-old. If some part of him had been trying to push her away with this new face, it was actually…not the best strategy. The Doctor she had once called _her_ Doctor had been so endlessly, intentionally endearing that it had actually been easier for her to compartmentalize. He was alien, yes, and exciting and intelligent and new, but then part of him always reminded her of those puppy-eyed boys who had pursued her in college—she knew how to deal with that. She knew where her boundaries were. When she was being brutally honest with herself, she even knew that he had something of a crush on her—it was unthreatening, cute even. But she could read nothing of that in this new face. Or maybe she just wasn’t seeing so clearly anymore. If there had been any way of explaining it to her class, it would’ve been a textbook example of irony. In trying to push her away, he had become, well, her _type_.

But then it seemed so unbearably _silly_ for all of this to revolve around, what, sex? Like this was all just some hormonal game of tag. Tag—I want you but you don’t want me. Tag—I’ve changed and now you’re it. Moreover, as she would remind herself, she already had good reasons to rule that one out. The first was because, of course, she had imagined it before—just once, during a slightly lonely night grading papers and after one too many glasses of wine. She was only human, after all. His lean frame, the tousled hair, those few deliberate touches she was never expecting, that intense, focused gaze—they would do. They would do pressed into the mattress, or up against the wall…they would do. But then, when she was lost in imagining the way he would say her name, the way he already said her name, she realized she would have no way to respond. The word “doctor” had taken on a new meaning for her, of course, a meaning that was all his own, but to say it in _that_ sort of situation was absurd bordering on silly. It wasn’t even that he had never told her his real name; it was just how ridiculous she would sound repeating the title he had chosen, the neighbors assuming she was acting out some sort of odd roleplay in which she was—a nurse? A patient? Worse, some part of her mind was already putting together a feeble gynecologist joke. And that was truly the end of that particular train of thought. Nothing killed the mood quite like a gynecologist joke.

The second reason it emphatically _wasn’t_ about sex was the more weighty one, if she were being honest with herself, just a small event in the grand scheme of their adventures, but one that they never really talked about. It had been after the Orient Express, on that heady night when everything had seemed attainable. The planet of shrubs had turned out to be, well, exactly as advertised—“A bit more exciting in concept than in execution,” he admitted—so he had taken her to another highbrow affair, a winter solstice celebration on Thelmacron that he assured her wouldn’t involve any sort of fertility rituals or virgin sacrifices—at least not this year. Normally that was the sort of information he would’ve tossed her way as an afterthought, but this time he whispered it conspiratorially while they nicked a champagne bottle. He was so _present_ for once, like a knot somewhere deep inside of him had loosened. Security was lax and they roamed the manicured gardens with their contraband champagne virtually unchecked, skirting alien princes and ambassadors under a dark purple sky. The grounds were covered in fog, white clouds that rose steadily due to a geothermal process the Doctor wouldn’t shut up about. She wanted to see it all—the time-manipulated fountains that cascaded in slow motion, the fairy lights that flew away before she could get close, the pavilion that somehow allowed dancers to hover a few feet in the air.

They wound their way up to a lonely balcony to get a better view and popped open the champagne bottle with the sonic, immediately losing the cork in the fog. It was calming to be out of the buzzing, cobblestone avenues and the endless conversation, above the floating dancers that cut lines through the mist. They sipped companionably, an alien melody drifting up from below, the Doctor occasionally pointing out party guests with particularly interesting or infamous backstories. _Like characters out of some mad play_ , Clara thought, watching champagne bubbles rise through cut crystal. She was in that comfortable headspace of interest and detachment that she found herself slipping into whenever they stopped somewhere for just a short while. The passengers on the Orient Express had all been unquestionably immediate, but here she felt foreign to the timeline, like a wandering ghost. It was no wonder that aloofness seemed to be the Doctor’s default mode. She glanced over to see him leaning neatly on the railing beside her, looking up at the stars with that quiet focus he had. She nudged him.

“See anywhere we’ve been?” He shook his head.

“Mostly burned out, boiling hot planets out here. The Thelmacronians were never very careful about gathering resources from their neighbors.” He glanced at her. “That was an exceedingly considerate euphemism—truth is they flame-mined them until the surfaces were like a living death.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Tact. A few places we could visit, though. If we wanted,” he added with the ghost of a smile. Clara felt herself grinning like a fool at the purple-black sky. 

“If we wanted,” she conceded. She took a moment to study the constellations, clumped together and spread out in glorious configurations she had never seen before. “Do you dance, Doctor?” she asked abruptly. He gave her one of those looks of multilayered grumpiness.

“Only on very special occasions.”

“And this doesn’t count?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Clara felt a fierce joy expand within her. She didn’t have to give any of it up, none of it, not the warmth of Danny’s sweet earnestness and not this twisted life she and the Doctor had, running up and down corridors and spinning from star to star in a big, small box that felt like home. 

She spun him toward her, bringing his hand to her waist. “Turns out I’m not that patient,” she declared. He made a momentary expression of almost laughable surprise, but for once, he didn’t tense up at her nearness, didn’t freeze when she took his hand into hers. She stepped forward as if taking the lead and then faltered, realizing she wasn’t actually sure if she remembered any of the ballroom dances she had just been so keen on trying. 

He seemed to guess the source of her hesitation, and he raised an eyebrow. “Your move.” Maybe it was that damned overconfidence that did it, that mix of the utterly suave and the utterly ridiculous. There were the makings of a manic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth while her mind tumbled uncomprehendingly through a litany of dance terms. It was impossible. She tingled with an odd energy, distracted by the steady pressure of his hand on her waist. “The great Clara Oswald,” he was saying, “stumped at last.” His eyes were alight with that slightly maniacal gleam. He was enjoying this.

“I’ll have you know I was the best dancer in Gran’s ballroom classes,” she bristled.

He spread his fingers and moved a hand deliberately toward the small of her back, firmly guiding her another step closer. “Somehow less impressive than opening a ball with Madame du Pompadour.” 

“God, you’re infuriating.”

Something seemed to tilt—time, or space, or her, closing the distance—some part of her thought, “What the hell.” She pulled him in by that ridiculous, impeccable shirtfront and kissed him fiercely, pulling him still closer, his hand pressing, pressing into her back. It was like something had broken or snapped, but snapped into alignment, into what felt achingly right, and she felt a tingling heat, and his mouth answered hers—

Until it didn’t, and she paused, pulling back fractionally, sharing his breath for a few shuddering moments. And then he said it, like the words had dropped between them from some other universe.

“Clara, Clara, Clara.” It was the tone he used when he felt she had made some sort of blunder, when he gave her that look of potent disapproval, like she was a student who had just volunteered a painfully wrong answer. She recoiled in time to see him shake his head slightly, his face distant, unreadable.

“Yes?” she said tensely. He shook his head again, this time more easily, with the hint of a deprecating smile.

“Clara, Clara, Clara.” The disapproval in his voice was unmistakable. She felt herself go cold and hot in waves. 

“I need some air,” she said roughly—and instantly regretted it, because it made no sense to say on a balcony, and she didn’t want him to know that she was in a position to say things that made no sense. She pushed past him, clattering down the stone steps, back to the jostling throngs of party guests and swirling fog.

It hadn’t even been guilt—that had come later, with the painful realization that she had answered Danny’s perfect trust by, technically, cheating on him with an actual alien. At the time, though, all she could feel was anger. Because _of course_ that’s how the Doctor would respond; of course that was his reaction to a real, proper kiss—that easy, flat rejection, like she was a misbehaving child. The moment had probably only even lasted that long because he had been waiting politely for her to stop. It was infuriating. Nothing killed the mood quite like condescension.

She wound her way deep into the crowd, unthinkingly grabbing an unattended wineglass so she might look like she belonged there, waiting for the buzz of introductions and bad jokes and polite debate around her to press the sharp irritation from her mind. The guests that had seemed so madcap and exotic before suddenly reminded her of parents at a school conference. There was even a bloke with tentacles who was otherwise a dead ringer for the Vice Principal. She might as well have gone to that teacher development workshop she’d been so keen to skip. 

She came to a clump of pompous blue-skinned officials who were laughing at something and joined in as if she understood the joke. Two of them turned to look at her and she stepped into their circle with a certain recklessness. 

“And who would you be representing, madam?” one of them asked imperiously. “Or are you the, ah, escort of one of the representatives?” All eyes in the group turned to her.

“Ah, yes, I’m the ambassador from Narnia,” she said smoothly. She swirled the wine in her borrowed glass. A circle of blank stares.

“Of course, of course!” chimed in one of the officials. “But your Thelmacronian is quite impeccable.” She nodded knowingly. 

“And how do you find the fete?” the first alien asked, pursing his lips.

“Acceptable,” she answered breezily. “Security’s a bit lax, though. And I must admit, one too many Gallifreyans for my taste.”

“Hear, hear!” another official volunteered fatuously. “Intolerable race.” Suddenly Danny’s words drifted back to her— _you can always spot the aristocracy._

“I didn’t think there were any Gallifreyans still extant,” the first alien said sourly.

“What an innovative and callous way to put it,” Clara said broadly. “Maybe he wasn’t Time Lord after all—I do get mixed up with all these aristocratic killjoy types.” An official to her left spluttered as if he’d been personally targeted. She reflected that one advantage of this over the teacher development workshop was that she could say what she liked. “You know, obnoxiously well-groomed, piercing gaze, inherently untrustworthy. Curbs all life and spontaneity with carefully measured condescension.” She glanced down at her filched wine glass, wishing it were drinkable. “But enough about that. Shall we all toast to imperialism or some such?” 

There was a cough, but one of the drunker ones actually did propose a wobbly toast to some hideous-sounding business venture, leading to a chorus of self-congratulatory praise and a lot of jovial back-slapping. She wanted to gag into her wine glass. Instead, she handed it off to the nearest official. “Enjoy!” she added brightly, departing from the blue-skinned group as quickly as she had joined it. 

“I’ll say—“ said the fatuous alien, aghast.

“Narnians. They’re all like that,” another interjected knowledgably. She bit back a hollow laugh as she left them behind. The angry buzzing in her head had returned with a vengeance. She wondered briefly whether the Doctor had seen the exchange from the balcony and pushed her way through the crowd with a greater urgency. 

Soon she came to a far edge, where a stone stairway descended to the wilder part of the grounds. It was a relief to see it. She wound down to the edge of the woods. 

It was cooler in the darkness, the mists rising in great, visible swaths. It felt as if they were her ally somehow, insulating her from the mad party, hiding her from sight. There were a smattering of dim points of light in the near distance, but she didn’t need to see those to be wary of potential amorous hideouts—she had enough school dances under her belt for that to be second nature. Unbidden, her mind presented her with a sharp reminder of what it felt like to have the Doctor’s mouth crushed against hers—salt and skin and breathless immediacy. She rejected it angrily. Stupid, _stupid_ thing to do. She might as well have snogged the tentacle-laden Vice Principal. Come to think of it, he might have taken it better.

She hadn’t realized how well her eyes had adjusted to the dark until she came to the edge of the woods, and her breath caught in her throat. From the balcony, she had assumed it was just a trick of the mist, but no—every leaf was distinct, crisp white. She looked in wonder at the length of it, at lines and hills and swaths of white woods that stretched into the darkness. Like a perfectly snow-dusted countryside. 

“Alright, Doctor,” she breathed. “I’m impressed.” That was the carrot, she thought, the McGuffin that kept them all coming back for more. But even then, she couldn’t be quite so cynical. These things need to be seen, she thought. There were so many amazing things in so many distant corners of the universe, and somehow they needed to be seen. “Even here,” she muttered, “on this colonialist prick planet.”

She knew it was only too likely that she’d get lost if she ventured into the woods, and she didn’t much fancy having to call the TARDIS and ask the Doctor to come collect her, so she hopped onto a low wall and settled there cross-legged, just above the clinging fog. The lower half of her dress was almost dripping wet in places, but the air above was warmer. And every time that gut-wrenching, ill-advised kiss snapped back into her mind, she imagined burying it gently in swaths of sharp white leaves.

She sensed him coming even before she heard the pulsing whine of the sonic screwdriver. She called to him resignedly, somehow both annoyed and contented that he had known where to find her. She saw him turn, the green light sharply illuminating the furrows of his face. 

“Good evening, Clara,” was all he said when he reached her elbow. She was irritated to find that she was unthinkingly pleased to hear it, and she considered the pros and cons of slapping him for her own good. He leaned forward, resting on the wall next to where she sat. She felt him look at her and then out to the woods. 

“I’m _not_ apologizing,” she stated abruptly. There was a silence.

“Quite right,” he replied finally. Another silence. “I should tell you that there’s a bit of a situation developing,” he began again with a restrained urgency. “Back at the party.” She turned to him then and studied him closely, leaning there against the wall, his hands tucked around his elbows and his profile a sharp outline of shadow. So he had come equipped with another problem to solve, she thought, another disaster to avert. She wondered for the second time that night if the danger were part of his plan, if bringing her here had been a calculated risk on his part. She considered what it would mean to say no to him.

“Turns out I may have been, ah, mistaken about this year,” he continued, turning to her. “It would seem they’re preparing for some sort of human sacrifice after all.” She felt a dull shock despite herself. “It’s possible, of course, that the preparations are merely ceremonial—luckily it’s a girl this year.” 

“ _Luckily_?”

“Preliminary rituals are longer for a female victim.” She almost laughed.

“Why do people _do_ these things?” 

“Weird religions, mostly. Weird religions love killing people,” he added philosophically. “In the cult of Shada, for instance, most of the worshippers themselves are reanimated corpses.”

“Lovely.” She considered. “Is this the part where you say it’s a fixed point?” He closed his eyes briefly.

“Yes and no, but mostly no. Time has been…elastic tonight.” He gave her a sharp look. “Your choice, if you want to help.” She realized with a sinking feeling that he really did wear his virtue on his sleeve. Whether or not he needed this action to keep from standing still was another matter.

“Alright,” she said firmly. “Let’s go.” She hopped down from the wall and took off toward the party lights, knowing he would follow. 

And by the time they were both charging up the stone steps and toward the pavilion that now held a prone, floating body and a group of ominously chanting figures in dark purple cloaks, by the time they were formulating rapid-fire plans for how to free the victim without being blindingly obvious about it, Clara had lost the blunt edge of her anger. And by the time they were dropping the dazed girl off at a distant village—a pretty easy job, all in all—vowing to never again try something like that in formal attire, they were back, like an unspoken truce had been struck. It was almost too easy to resume their habits of deep, distant companionship. 

And the Doctor was once again so eminently inscrutable, like he was coiled behind a sleek shell. He brought her back to the Coal Hill janitor’s closet and insisted that it was her living room; referred to her students as “nearly catatonic puddingheads”; politely ignored her when she contradicted him, and she was reminded of the myriad of little ways he pushed her and everyone else away. He told her he would come next Wednesday, but it sounded more like a dismissal than a promise. She wanted to know what exactly he was thinking, to study his eyes as he leaned against the main console, hands in his pockets, deliberately nonchalant and secretive all at once. But she still hadn’t nearly forgiven him for earlier, and when he raised an arm and snapped to open the TARDIS doors—that damned condescension again—she left with the most casual goodbye she could muster. And that was that. 

So, _no_ , she could tell Danny someday with perfect sincerity, the great “if” that she always felt pressing on her when the Doctor was around wasn’t about anything so simple as lust. Maybe it was even, like so many other things about him, just a great trick; maybe one day it would crumble around her as cruelly as had her conviction that he would never let her down. Maybe “he’s amazing” and “I see wonders” were the best answers after all. 

So there was no reason to stop travelling with him, really. He was just a fairly interesting man who showed her fairly interesting things, and that was all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	3. to break apart the walls that you still tend

The Doctor had little trouble letting go of that night. It’d been almost easy for him. “Champagne,” he had thought firmly to himself a few times, as well as “idiot.” He’d even scribbled the words on the chalkboard, just as a memory aid, to file them away in a part of his mind reserved exclusively for the quirks of human behavior. Just to prove himself beyond question, he went so far as to crack open an old book on the humanoid endocrine system—it had confirmed his theories in every particular—and he had even, once or twice, thought, “P.E.” That was all it took to put it behind him. To call it a struggle would’ve been overdramatic in the extreme.

No, the party on Thelmacron was nothing. It was the encounter with the Boneless that had shaken him to the core. 

The worst part was that she wouldn’t leave him alone afterward—just kept talking above and around him, trailing along the bookcases with that self-satisfied smirk. He finally wrenched the TARDIS doors open himself and gestured firmly to them like a rude, slightly manic butler. “Class dismissed,” he added captiously. She always got thoroughly ruffled when he said things like that. 

“Teaching is an actual, useful thing I do, you know,” she asserted, “not just a platform for your feeble jokes.” He gestured ineffectually to the door again. “You make it out like it’s some sort of quirky accessory I’ve adopted to make myself more interesting. Like an especially ugly handbag.” He realized he was amused despite himself.

“I have things to do,” he insisted. “I’m not just a taxi service for self-satisfied control freaks.” 

“Oh all _right_!” she said huffily. She grabbed her things and bounced airily down the steps towards the doorway. “You don’t have to be such a bad sport about it, though,” she added, tucking an impossibly shiny strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m not replacing you yet.” The words hit him like a strike on fractured glass.

He cranked the TARDIS into orbit as soon as she was away, setting the destination coordinates to spin indeterminately. For a moment, the persistent tug of time abated, and he felt a sprawling web of possibilities unfurl around him, as if he had stepped out of a dusty cabinet into a windy, open space. He relaxed incrementally. He coaxed the hardline phone into mute mode and locked it there—an unusually difficult process, as though the TARDIS didn’t think it was a good idea (“What’s your problem? You didn’t even like her in the first place,” he growled at the control panel.)—and that felt better. But it still wasn’t enough.

The ladder was hidden rather brilliantly, he thought—it took precisely the right input for the round things on the walls to reconfigure themselves into rungs. He climbed up and along the dome, and then used the sonic at a control panel to alter the gravity, just slightly, so he could make the impossible leap to the top of the central column. There was a latticed overhang above the column, a narrow ledge that seemed to serve no particular purpose, and he pulled himself up and onto it in one easy motion. For a moment he crouched on the edge, his whole frame rigid. When he looked down, he could see the yawning space below organized into small hexagonal containers by the latticework, order upon chaos. The rest of his surroundings were only a smooth, glowing metal that had remained essentially the same through each and every control room theme. He breathed in and out, and then, almost gingerly, he inched spiderlike back to the corner, until he could press his shoulder blades into the warm metal. It was like wading into a familiar creek. All around were his own timelines, folded and bunched in this space like tangled yarn. 

It was really the sound he was after, that wheezing, oscillating purr that came directly from the heart of the TARDIS. It had been there for him even when he was a little, little child. Already running. He willed himself to relax, hands resting lightly on his bent knees, and let the sound suffuse him, trying to narrow his focus to the comforting, creaky hum and the high, laser-like pings that bounced in vibrating arcs from the metal. Landings elicited a daring screech, like they were coming to a screaming halt on the edge of a cliff, but in flight she was only breathing. 

He allowed himself to consider the day’s events. So Clara had lied to him. And masterfully well. She was one of those rare people who didn’t lie because she had anything to hide—no, it was about control, about keeping everyone in their proper place. He should know. It was a thought that brought him curiously close to a wounded annoyance, but he brushed it aside almost as easily as it had come. It wasn’t what had disoriented him so profoundly.

She was supposed to be separate—that was the thing. She was strong, so strong, and he had thought her utterly self-possessed, forever following her own path. She was shaken at times, he knew, and scared—he would never forget the way she had lashed out with an angry, betrayed need when he had left her on the moon. But she was Clara, her own Clara—her name was never, ever to be blurred with his. The word “idiot” punched through his thoughts in a staccato refrain. Because of course they were intertwined now, two mad souls knocking about through worlds unknown; of course he had diverted her, changed her. Of course they had picked up each others’ habits, comingled the flotsam and jetsam of their lives, her papers and hairbands and jackets ending up in corners and on tables by the wingback chairs the way his gadgets and cufflinks ended up on her dresser. Of course she would learn from him, would consider following his lead—it was what he tried to discourage with every brutally honest turn of phrase and every prickly rejection, but it was unavoidable. It was the way humans worked, this growing together of habits and minds. There were so many odd corners and dark shadows in this new body and brain, but nothing he discovered would ever change his fundamental culpability. He was a lonely meddler; he was a decider, manipulating what no one should control. And she was right, of course—she had the mettle, the curiosity that never let up, even the brilliance. She made an excellent Doctor. But a Doctor was the one thing Clara should never, ever be.

He had been blindsided by her down there with the Boneless. But here, surrounded by the dependable knocks and groans of the TARDIS engines, his thoughts came smoothly, and he was able to consider the situation in full. Which was how he knew that there was only one possible conclusion, no matter how much he wished it unthought, unthinkable. He had to leave her in her tracks. Had to let her go. It was high time for it, he knew, even if the thought of it made him want to howl in despair. It was time to run, even if he couldn’t imagine running without her close behind him. He listened to the TARDIS send up bursts of high-pitched energy that floated toward the ceiling like bubbles—“Run, you clever boy,” he heard over and over, a siren song of lonely guilt. “And remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	4. it doesn't matter if

It was a reoccurring dream, but it wasn’t a stressful one—not exactly. She was leaning over a strange, dusty book, brow furrowed, waiting for the twisting symbols on the open pages to resolve themselves into words. They remained ciphers no matter how she puzzled over them, no matter how urgently she needed to understand. And yet she was still filled with a persistent expectation. 

For his part, Danny was convinced it was a stress dream about school. “It’s like you’re stood in front of the class, but you can’t understand the lesson,” he explained with reassuring logic. “I’ve had a similar one myself ever since I first started teaching.” It made sense, it really did, but every time the dream returned she realized that that wasn’t it at all. There was no way to decode the message on those well-worn, gilt-edged pages, but somehow she never stopped believing that she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	5. of lessons learned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (parallels Dark Water and Death in Heaven)

He had gotten so used to that easy grace she had, gotten used to watching her move about just beyond his reach like so many other beautiful, flitting things in the universe. It was a blow to the gut to see her crumbling. She always held herself well, he knew, always faced the world with a certain level of conscious control, but he had only realized the extent of it when he saw her walk onto the TARDIS that day—shattered. He had never been so cognizant of whether she were beside him. He watched her be brave and clever, his hands twitching in the empty space between them—this was no place for her now. What was it she called it? Duty of care. She could care about the others while he was busy saving their skins, but it was his job, only his, to care for her.

Until it wasn’t. Because it was a solider who saved her in the end, a man who, despite his predilection for needlessly trendy restaurants, would initiate a cyber inferno to protect her. He had disliked Danny Pink on sight with a sort of wild, undefined instinct, but even he could see that Pink was better at that role that he himself had taken on so belatedly, better at supporting and waiting and caring. Somehow P.E. had become the crux of her odd, ordinary life. And all he could think was, “Time to pay up, old man.” Time to fulfill that vow. So he left, while she was still whole, wrenching the TARDIS into the vortex at a flat-out run. And oh, how he remembered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	6. we're parallel sinking ships

She padded into the kitchen in her robe and put the kettle on, wincing as the bright circle of flame sprung up. It must’ve been the silence—that was why she was still having trouble sleeping these days. She had assumed the insomnia would pass, assumed it in the short-sighted way she had been looking at most parts of her life lately. It was a useful myopia, she knew, letting her see the next steps but not the long, barren path ahead of them. She remembered it. She had lost someone before. 

The trouble sleeping had started with the boy. He’d, understandably, had night terrors. At first, there was hardly a night when she hadn’t woken, hard pounding, to a sharp crash or garbled scream. No matter how many times she had already consoled him that day, already told him that he was safe and wasn’t in heaven or hell or anywhere in between, he would still wake up terrified. It wasn’t an easy sort of life, caring for a resurrected boy who, incidentally, spoke very little English, but it gave her something to focus on, even gave her a ready excuse for those days when it was all she could do to numbly navigate the set of obstacles that made up her daily life. She had already had her fill of long, languid days and empty nights. And later, when he had adjusted somewhat to his entirely new existence, she would wake up to find him quietly fixing a midnight snack. He usually had something for her too, a cucumber sandwich or a glass of hot cocoa; it was their routine, one of those things they did together that didn’t involve language barriers or difficult decisions or unanswerable questions. It was something they both had in common, that neither of them could get through the night.

And now, despite the companionable hiss of the teakettle, it was too quiet. She wondered if he thought so too, at his sister’s house in Birmingham. She had no conception of how she would’ve managed to get him there if she hadn’t personally known a high-ranking government official. (On her more fractious days, she found herself grumbling about whether Danny had had any conception of the task he’d set for her. She paid for it on her wobbly, pathetic days, when it seemed like she could never be worthy of all the kind things he had done.)

Because it had been impossible, after all, to find his parents, even with the copious help of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart—it seemed most likely that they had disappeared too, in the war. They had been somewhat at a loss until one of Kate’s people made the fortuitous discovery that his older sister had emigrated to the UK and started a family in Birmingham. The boy was only a few years out of sync with his timeline ( _Only_ , Clara thought bitterly, _only a few years in that hellhole Missy built_.), so they were able to make the introduction with a surprising amount of normalcy. And he was ready, too. Clara had gotten him into classes at Coal Hill as soon as she could, guessing rightly that it would help him with the adjustment, and in the very least give him something to do all day. He had taken to them almost immediately—school was something he remembered and understood. His English improved rapidly, and his personality began to come out, his little jokes and his love of footballers, his predilection for tracing drawings out of comic books. It was a rush of pure joy, the sort she had forgotten she could feel, when she had ridden with him the few hours to his sister’s house and seen them reunite. But it was a joy followed closely by a hollow sort of sadness. 

He understood, of course. They had been each other’s lifelines for months now, and he could sense when she was having one of her bad days. On their last night she tried to make shepherd’s pie—one of those solid English meals that she was always convinced was so easy to whip up—and he had spent most of the evening at her elbow giving her worried looks, no matter how brightly she told him that everything was under control. The pie had come out nearly inedible, of course, but that was just fate. So they ordered out and ate Chinese on the sofa, watching an impressively bad program on her tiny television—a proper British finale.

“You’ll miss him more when I’m gone, will you?” he asked, when she had been nestled silently in her corner of the couch for a bit too long. Clara nodded, caught-off-guard, and realized with an all-too-familiar twinge of guilt that she had been dwelling on the wrong absence.

“Your sister’s promised to have me over for dinner, though—not likely to pass that up, am I?” she asked mischievously, as if daring him to insult her cooking. He was too good—or maybe too preoccupied with whatever tomfoolery had just transpired on the television—to take the bait. And, to her credit, his sister had been as good as her word. Clara had just been to their house again the other night for a fantastically delicious curry. The whole evening had been a vividly bright slice of life that had made her gasp with loneliness on the ride home.

The truth was, Clara thought, meting out peppermint leaves into the tea infuser, that it wasn’t really the quiet that woke her up—it was the emptiness. She drank the steaming mug slowly, at her favorite spot by the window. The moon was nowhere to be seen.

When she went back to bed, she sunk almost immediately into a nightmare, finding herself trapped in a tundra of cyber limbs that reached from out of the frozen earth. There was no possibility of hiding—they sensed her no matter how fast she ran. And no matter how far. Every time she thought she had escaped, another forest of limbs cracked the ground and groped their way toward her. There came a familiar whining chug, a rare and strange sound that floated on the wind like the call of a distant train—but it had to be a trap. If there was one thing she knew, it was that she was alone. There was a flash of steel at her ankles, and she slammed into the ground. She heard her own scream and the crunch of snow as the metal man crawled out of the earth—and then she was deafened by an abrupt, materializing boom. She jolted awake in a cold sweat, heart pounding. It was unmistakable, that sound. She jerked the covers off and froze with her feet dangling over the floor, her whole frame tense with expectation but her quickening consciousness already predicting that she would hear nothing. Nothing. Nothing. A resounding, scraping creak. She tore out to the living room.

And it was truly, unmistakably there, the door ajar and white light bursting from the neat, rectangular windows, so tall and solid and sharply blue. She sank down, sitting heavily on the living room carpet, and took a few ragged breaths.

“Clara,” came his voice from behind her. She stood rapidly, darkness invading the edges of her vision—he was partly in shadow, but he was there, peering owlishly around the doorframe. They locked eyes, and for a long moment she stood immobile, holding his gaze. She saw his face flicker with pain and then something else—guilt. “Clara,” he repeated roughly. She made her way to him slowly, disbelievingly, and gripped his arm with a disoriented fierceness.

“Hey,” she said thickly. “Hey there, Space Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	7. glow is low and it's dimming

“You look the same,” she told him over another cup of steaming tea.

“Is that surprising?” he asked, sipping politely. He would never admit it, but Clara knew that this regeneration didn’t like tea as much as he had before. 

“I thought you’d be all dressed up in those mad Gallifreyan clothes,” she explained. “You know, with the bright robes and peacock-looking hats.” She gestured in the air above her head, approximating a peacock-looking hat.

“Ah, yes,” he said uncomfortably. “Well, I do try to dress appropriately for the planet.”

“Oh, that’s rich. I’ve seen you wear a fur coat and a kilt to an actual royal ball.” He smiled suddenly.

“If you remember, Porridge did name me honorary head of the emperor’s wardrobe.”

“Yeah, I think that was more of a sarcastic title.”

“I’d say regardless, one of us has been knighted for our keen fashion sense, and one of us has not.”

“Yes, well, one of us was almost Queen of the Galaxy, so I think all in all it’s a wash.” She opened a package of Jammie Dodgers and laid the sleeve out on the table. 

“I didn’t wake Danny coming, did I?” he asked abruptly. Clara felt a wave of something akin to dizziness.

“No,” she answered automatically. “No, I don’t think so.” He gave the barest of nods, picking up a biscuit with deft fingers and surveying it like it was a foreign artifact. She felt her equilibrium return. “So what brings you to this neck of the woods?” she asked, affectedly casual. Some part of herself was already steeling for disappointment. She knew, even in her fuzzy euphoria, that the Doctor never did anything without a reason. He continued to examine his biscuit. 

“I had a question for you,” he said, “about a certain figurine I seem to have always had in my possession.” Clara felt her heart lurch as he flicked open his jacket and pulled out a small, unarmed toy solider from a red-lined pocket. “You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?” She took it reverently from his hand. It was unbearably strange, that she could hold this lost toy from Danny’s childhood, and from his impossible future, while he was still irrevocably gone.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, remembering that there were several layers of dissimulation she was supposed to be maintaining. She had never been on Gallifrey and never met the Doctor as a lonely, frightened child—that was one. And Danny was still alive and still loving her—that was most important. That was the painful little lie that had set the Doctor free.

“I don’t know,” he said, suddenly inscrutable. “I did say I’ve always had it. Try to keep up.” She was too preoccupied to be annoyed.

“It does seem rather similar to the one from the children’s home—don’t you think?” she asked, playing for time. How had they so skillfully traded in lies before? She didn’t feel at all equal to extricating herself from this conversation with all her untruths intact. What was more, she didn’t really want to. It felt like a waste of energy. Danny being alive, that was essential, but surely she could tell the Doctor about Gallifrey, now that he had found it again.

“That’s precisely what I’m asking you,” he was saying irritably.

“Right. Well. Incidentally, do you remember how I was supposed to be on a date that night?”

“You were always supposed to be on a date,” he growled.

“Yes, well, this time I was actually, properly in the middle of a date. You know—I was home early when you came and picked me up.”

“Yes, yes, you were here and I picked you up. I’ve been here—everything’s exactly the same. I want _there_ , the timeline you wouldn’t let me see.” Clara tilted her head curiously. It wasn’t like him to play his hand so early in a conversation. 

“Right. It’s just that _because_ I was smack in the middle of a date—that’s the important bit here, the date—the TARDIS telepathic circuits went a bit…wonky.”

“I see. Totally attributable to the circuits themselves and in no way to you.”

“Do you want to hear this, or not?” 

“Interrupted dates and defective circuits and perfect Clara—I’m listening,” he responded testily. For some reason his attention seemed to be arrested by the kitchen behind her, his eyes flicking from one thing to another.

“Right, so the long and short of it is that the boy in the home—“

“Wait.” He put a finger on her lips. “Can you just?—Just shush for a moment.” Her eyes widened.

“I’m sorry?” She pulled his hand away.

“Just _shush_ ,” he demanded, putting his hand back. She complied for a few moments while he looked fiercely around her kitchen. “Dammit, Doctor, you’re noticing things,” he breathed. “She’s finally telling you something interesting and you’re _noticing_ things.”

“ _Finally_ telling you something interesting?” 

“Why do you always notice things? Why can’t you just be on autopilot for once—just sit here nicely and have a biscuit while you learn interesting things?”

“Doctor?” He looked at his hand, as if just realizing his finger was still on her lips. He let it drop to the table.

“Nothing. Sorry about that. Carry on.” She looked at him cagily. She couldn’t begin to fathom what could be so pressingly interesting about her messy kitchen.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Right.” She took a breath. “So the thing is—“ He stood abruptly, his chair scraping over the linoleum.

“Did you always have that cat-shaped magnet?” he asked urgently.

“I’m sorry?”

“The cat-shaped magnet, the one with the crazy eyes and the pom-pom tail—did you have that before?”

“…yes,” she answered, mystified. 

“And the spotty purple tea cozy and oven mitt?” 

“Yes.” He moved lithely around the table and regarded her stove. She swung around in her chair. “Doctor, what are you on about?”

“It’s the same. Everything’s exactly the same. Don’t you see? The box of matches, the plaid rags, that infernal teakettle. All the same.” 

“What’s wrong with my teakettle?” He whirled around, opening cabinets, picking up appliances, examining the contents of her pantry, ticking things off on his fingers. She stood automatically to keep an eye on him—a habit from his clumsier days.

“The wonky mixer, yes,” he was saying, “and the frankly dizzying array of teas. That recipe book you always made horrid things with; the plants—did you know this one’s dying? Were you going to water it?” 

“Er—“

“The blender you never use; the organizer—“ He stopped in front of her fridge. “You do know it’s December now, don’t you?” She realized her calendar was still on October and felt a dull throb of pain. “And what…what is this?” He gingerly moved aside a magnet from a carefully traced Wonder Woman.

“Alright,” she said suddenly, edging between him and the fridge. “I think that’s enough for the kitchen tour.” He looked at her closely. “We should probably get back to, you know, the interesting stuff. Remember the interesting stuff?” 

“That’s the rub, though, isn’t it. Stuff,” he said seriously. “Humans love stuff. Amy and Rory had stuff, Donna had suitcases full of it—really, at least five suitcases—Craig had stuff, all this stuff I wasn’t supposed to touch and that, fortunately, made for really great gadgetry on the go—“

“Your _point_ , Doctor?” He leaned down to be eye-level.

“Clara,” he asked, “where is Danny’s stuff?” 

She felt her throat constrict. 

“I’m sorry?” She focused on breathing normally, on not betraying the wild, erratic heartbeat she felt in her throat. 

“His stuff. His odd tea cozies and plaid rags and cat magnets,” he explained seriously, almost kindly, as if to a wayward child. “If he were here, so should his stuff be.” She swallowed.

“Who says I’m not moving to his place?” He shook his head, still with that knowing, almost kind half smile.

“You wouldn’t. You like yours.” She exhaled. It was true.

“Right. Well, um, let’s say…”

“Clara, Clara, Clara. Just tell me.” He was so close. There was no way to escape the physical immediacy of him.

“Right.” She looked up to keep her tears at bay. “Ok, um,” she began weakly. “The thing is…“ There was no time, no way to come up with a plausible lie. Her mind cycled through the possibilities anyway—Danny was travelling, he had enlisted again, they were in a tiff but she was about to make it up to him—the Doctor was still just looking at her with those knowing eyes. “Ok. Right,” she breathed in and out. “Do you remember when we were in the graveyard?”

And she told him. She started with Missy’s bracelet—a shadow crossed his face at that—and then she told him about that night Danny had come back just for a few scarce seconds, spoken to her through the tunnel before the boy stepped through. The Doctor straightened up as she spoke, drew a hand through his hair and down his cheek. Something in his demeanor seemed to change when she got to the boy. She paused, and he let out a single, odd-sounding laugh.

“Oh, well done, P.E., well done,” he said, almost to himself. His tone was light but unmistakably sardonic.

“I’m sorry?” she asked weakly. He shook his head slowly, loosely.

“Nothing. Just,” he shook his head again. “Well done, P.E.” A quiet, bitter sarcasm.

“No. Explain.” He exhaled loudly, no longer looking at her.

“Well. He’d already had his moment, don’t you think? Already saved the earth and all. Wasn’t that enough?” She looked at him disbelievingly.

“It was his choice,” she said slowly. “It was something he’d regretted for years—something he would’ve regretted all his life.“

“Yes, well he’d already paid his penance pretty well, I’d think, what with saving every last man, woman, and child on earth.” Still that sarcasm.

“Doctor, _what_ is your problem?” she demanded, her whole body tense. 

“Clara, he’d already been the big hero,” he said broadly, like it was an obvious truth. “Already won out against cyberprogramming to make the perfect sacrifice. Did he really need another great deed to his name?” She stepped back, stung.

“Are you _actually_ going to act like that was self-serving?” 

“Oh, give it a rest, Clara. He doesn’t need you to make his excuses for him.”

“What the— _what_ is your problem?” 

“Your dear boyfriend; that’s my problem,” he shot back, his Scottish accent thickening. “Believe it or not, I don’t have to pretend he’s perfect just because he’s offed himself twice now.” She inhaled sharply.

“You—what?!”

“Oh, come off it Clara—it was _cowardly_! It was a cowardly hero’s way out! It looks difficult and noble, I know, but it’s easy at that point. You just hold your breath and let go. Life is difficult, Clara—it’s so much easier to go down in history.” 

“Doctor—“

“And then here _I_ was, trusting him, thinking he had held up his end, thinking he was doing his _job_ ,” he ground on, flinging out the words.

“His _job_?”

“You needed him!” he snapped. “You needed him, and he had _earned_ the right to take care of you. He let you down!” 

“I don’t—“ she shook her head violently, tears stinging in her eyes despite everything.

“And now he looks a hero! And you go on and memorialize him when he left you stranded.” He curled his lip.

“You’re unbelievable,” she pronounced, her body taut with anger.

“No, not me. For once, not me. It’s P.E.’s turn tonight.” He raised his eyebrows dangerously. “Believe you me, I could go on.” She felt herself come to a breaking point.

“Are you _actually_ doing this?” she demanded. “Are you _actually_ going to stand here right now and insult him?” He didn’t answer, as if sensing the turn. “And are you actually, seriously, going to ignore the boy? A person is _alive_ because of Danny—a boy is breathing because Danny gave up his own chance—are you _really_ too self-involved to even acknowledge that? And don’t you _dare_ treat him like a concept in some abstract moral dilemma that only you can solve—he is already so, so tired of being ignored by people like you.” The Doctor just stood, immobile. She suddenly felt exhausted, like someone had dragged her there along a path of stones. She angrily wiped her cheek. “This is what you do, Doctor. This is what you always do. You stand there and you turn real, actual people into abstract concepts so you can judge them and decide whether or not they _matter_.” She considered. “And I know what it’s like. I’ve been there with you, outside of time—but you _live_ there, Doctor. You hop in your box and skip backwards and forwards and turn us all into ghosts. And I don’t need that. And I _especially_ don’t need that right now when I have _nothing_.”

They stared at each other for a moment. She watched his face, there in her tiny kitchen at three in the morning, her body coursing with anger and confusion and grief. And then he nodded mutely, seemed to pull himself together. He pulled a hand down his cheek again, a movement that seemed to speak both of bewilderment and decision.

“Right, then.” He moved suddenly toward her—paused, his hand hovering by her hair. She waited. He was inscrutable. Then he breathed out and let the hand fall without touching her. One more moment—and then he was turning, and striding to the kitchen door. She followed him without even intending to, trailing after him back into the darkness of the living room like they were somehow tethered. He nudged open the TARDIS door, the one that had been ajar earlier, what seemed like eons earlier, and turned back to her. She waited, her heart in her mouth.

“Good night, Clara.” And that was all he said, the only thing he left her with as he shut the door and as the TARDIS began to disappear with an inevitable, inexorable finality. She wanted to turn away—he deserved that—but she stayed rooted there until the very last second, watching every last flicker until her apartment was empty again. That was when she crumpled to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	8. glitch on your shoulder

There was nothing like an impossible task for clearing the mind, the Doctor thought a few days later, arm-deep in circuitry under the TARDIS’s main console. He finished rewiring the steering and leaned back to assess his work. It was hardly a work of art, what with the naked bundles of wire snaking along the stairway and up to the makeshift steering rods, but it would do. Finding the rods under a pile of bison skins in the wardrobe had been perfect timing—he had always known those skins would come in handy. He had decided after his third failed attempt to fracture Missy’s timelock that a more hands-on approach was needed.

He climbed back up to the main control panel and nudged the steering rods to one side, feeling the TARDIS rock sideways in response before the gravity corrected itself. 

“I’d say only good could come of this,” he opined to no one. He refitted a panel that had gone askew and peered at the readings. “Well that’s not ideal.” His hands danced over the controls, and the TARDIS came out of the vortex with an angry sort of squeak. “I know, I know, old girl.” He gave the console a light pat. “I’ve been negligent. Haven’t been to Cardiff in ages. Plenty of rift energy on our way out of reality though, wouldn’t you say?” He yanked the screen toward him and studied the constellations.

“Ah! There we are. Almost precisely the right time, too. Just a quick slingshot around Sirius, then. Soak up some rift energy and be out in a flash—easy.” He cranked an egg timer and input a few mathematical values—some with the universal keyboard, others by rotary dial. “Or it’ll obliterate us, depending,” he conceded, switching over the power. The lights in the central column flicked from blue to red, casting long, fiery shadows. “What is it they say? Can’t go home, so I’ll have to, ah, go big.” 

The egg timer dinged, and he immediately ran a palm along the controls, cranking several dials at once, and flipped a lever. The TARDIS groaned and shot forward, slamming him into the console. “That’s the spirit!” Points of light on the screen began to elongate as they barreled past, and he grabbed the steering handles and banked around a cluster of asteroids. “Top of the class!” he shouted in exuberance. “Well _that_ didn’t come out right.” He dodged several more clusters of space junk and curved the ship just beyond a gravity well. “That’s one argument in favor of a catch phrase. Without it you find the strangest things coming out.” They were getting closer now—he could feel the fault lines in reality pulling at him as they screamed toward the unstable star. That, of course, was nothing compared to what he felt when it went supernova.

He narrowed his focus to the controls, making a symphony of minor adjustments as the inferno tore at spacetime around him. The gravity was much more variable than he had expected, fluctuating wildly as the star’s mass radiated outward, consuming asteroids and interstellar dust and dwarf planets. Maybe he should’ve taken on a more manageable explosion for practice, he thought fleetingly as he struggled to position the TARDIS in an orbit around a star that no longer existed. There was a muffled crash and the ship shuddered—what had they hit? Debris? A planet half? The scanners were shorting out, only offering the fuzziest of pictures of the space they were careening through. Another hit—he scrambled to stay at the controls. Damn. If he could _just_ get clearer readings—he swiftly redirected power to the scanners—there were a few moments of crystal-clear readings and he navigated the ship deftly out of reach of a splintering comet—then the lights faded, flicked back on, and a power surge hit, blowing out the most vulnerable parts of the console with sharp pings of breaking glass. He was flying blind. Another shuddering hit—the cloister bell gonged—and everything went white.

~~~

He awoke to a profound stillness, slumped against the console, still somehow gripping the metal. Every inch of him ached. He put a hand to the back of his neck and straightened up to see Martha Jones eyeing him in concern. “Wha—?” He flailed back, passing a hand through her chest in the process. She didn’t even blink.

“ _Oh_ ,” he said heavily, regaining his equilibrium. The TARDIS visual interface. He rubbed the back of his neck again.

“Not a very happy landing, was it?” Martha asked conversationally, pulling out a clipboard and pen from her lab coat. 

“Landing…what landing?” He scrambled to stand up straight. “We should be riding out the explosion. Unless…unless it was a core collapse.” Martha clicked open her pen.

“Looks like neck pain to me.” He blinked at her.

“Pardon?”

“Sore all over, I’d suspect,” she continued, scribbling on her pad. “Probably a terrible headache in the near future.”

“Ah. Well while you handle that, I’ll just focus on whether we’ve been trapped in a singularity.” He turned blearily back to the console and brushed a few shards of glass away from a line of meters. “Except we can’t be. That explosion was far too slow for core collapse.” He felt another twinge in his neck.

“And then we’ve also got…reckless behavior,” Martha continued, “inclination to rewire the console on the fly; Scottish accent…and I’d say delusions of grandeur.”

“Oi!” he interjected mutinously.

“And that permanent grumpiness,” she added. He scowled at her. “Diagnosis: deals with pain and loss like a bratty five-year-old.” He made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat and turned back to the console. “Treatment: a dose of reality.” 

“Really?” he deadpanned, scrolling fruitlessly through a set of increasingly incomprehensible readings. 

“I know, I know—terrible pun. They’d have my head for that one in med school.” She tore the prescription off her pad and held it out to him. When he didn’t bother reaching for it, she waited a beat before letting it fall fluttering to the floor. “Patient refuses to accept diagnosis,” she recorded pointedly. 

He cranked the screen around toward him, but it was only showing white static. 

“I suppose you aren’t going to tell me where and when we are, are you?” he grumbled.

“Afraid I wouldn’t be talking to you if I knew,” she said crisply. “My best guess—and I’m really guessing here, because you gave me _very_ little data to go on—is that you got it in your head to punch a hole back into the Nethersphere. Not sure why else you’d’ve tried to slingshot around a supernova. So if you’re a little sore, try to imagine how _I_ feel.” She inclined her head knowledgably toward the central column. 

“I’m sure I did say I was headed to the Nethersphere,” he asserted querulously. 

“Oh yes, _audio_ data. You really can’t expect me to pay attention to audio data—especially not yours. I’d have to delete the library to analyze it all.”

“Oh very funny.”

“I’ve gotta say, though, I _do_ like the new look,” she added, clicking her pen and depositing it back in her coat pocket. “Bit rougher around the edges but, all the same, quite fit.” She gave him a wink. “Not nearly as ragingly sexy as my Doctor, but then he wouldn’t even have let me talk this long, would he? Would’ve interrupted to prat on about something shiny.” She paused, considered. “Sometimes I think—I dunno—I think I grew in spite of you.”

“Are you here to tell me anything at all useful,” he bristled, “or should I just sort out this mess alone?” Martha’s form flickered, bent, and resolved into Peri Brown.

“A little harsh, Doctor, don’t you think?” she asked. He paused for a moment at the shock of seeing her again. “You know, you don’t always have to play the Lone Ranger when you’ve got us around,” she added with a lilting hopefulness.

“But I haven’t got you, have I?” he asked quietly. She crossed her arms.

“Well I _guess_ not, if you have to be all exact about it,” she said, wrinkling her nose. She took a cautious step toward him, regarding him closely. “This was a big one, wasn’t it? You don’t feel at all…unstable, do you?” she asked, arms still crossed tightly over her chest.

“What do you think, Peri?” he asked carefully. Her mouth curved into a smile.

“I think you’ve come through it. This is progress at least—less of the shouting and the piloting us into supernovas, and more of the listening and the questions.” He furrowed his eyebrows.

“I certainly hope this isn’t just a big temper tantrum about our trip.” Peri flickered and became Martha again.

“’Our’ trip? When you decided on it you gave the console a little _pat_. Like you would a pet dog.”

“Well then. Next time I’ll be sure to present my itinerary to you for approval.” Martha’s lab coat flashed a bright pink—Peri again.

“Don’t patronize me, Doctor,” she said fiercely. He paused.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Peri softened a bit.

“It gets a bit tiring, you know, working against you. Why’d you want to get back to the Nethersphere anyway?” She shuddered. “God-awful place.” He flicked through the console readings again.

“Absolute gibberish,” he muttered. “Like we’re everywhere and nowhere all at once.” Peri sighed.

“And here I thought we were getting somewhere.”

“We certainly _would_ be, if you’d lay off the ghosts of Christmas past routine and give me some readings that make sense.” Peri wavered and disappeared. There was a gleam on the edge of his vision and looked up to see Zoe Heriot peering at a chalkboard on the other side of the room.

“Well first off,” she explained brightly, “you’ve got your calculations all wrong.”

“Unlikely,” he replied dryly, smiling despite himself.

“But you have!” she insisted. “Right here—you’re working in square roots again.” He shook his head knowingly.

“You’re just cycling through echoes now, old girl—their time streams are too far gone for anything else. Must’ve been quite a bit of rift energy you picked up.” Zoe’s shimmering sequins resolved into a dull brown.

“A shockwave!” Donna Noble shouted. “Stuffed to the rafters! A great big universe, packed into my circuits!” He looked at her gravely.

“I don’t appreciate being baited, you know.” He pulled a panel aside and examined the hardware linkages.

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Donna continued, peering at the chalkboard, “but I’ve really got to say, that looks a whole lot like a square root to me.” She jabbed smugly at the board with a finger. He made a noise of deep annoyance and squinted at the sprawl of messy handwriting behind her. Then he set the panel down and rattled down the steps toward her.

“So it is.” He erased the offending radical with a fingertip.

“Course, what do I know—I’m just a temp.” 

“Frankly embarrassing error,” he muttered, pulling a piece of chalk out from his pocket. 

“Don’t say that, Doctor!” Zoe said cheerily, appearing over his shoulder. “You’ve just been a bit careless, that’s all.” She pointed out a different section. “Like here, where you’ve misapplied the Wronsky Theorem. We can’t all be geniuses, you know.” He regarded her fiercely.

“That’s _textbook_ Wronsky,” he growled. Zoe grinned and blinked out of existence.

“So that’s how to get your attention,” Martha said from over his other shoulder. “Maths. I should’ve guessed. You’re a piece of work, you are.” He fixed the calculations and stalked back to the main console.

“Like holding a conversation with an interdimensional goldfish,” he muttered.

“Love the accent, though,” Amy Pond opined from where Martha had stood.

“Well that’s lovely to hear while we’re stranded in a spacetime vacuum.”

“Bit feisty, too! Doctor, I’m flattered,” she said archly.

“Were you hoping to get out of here at some point? Or were we going for a sort of Swiss Family Robinson, we-can-build-a-new-life-here kind of outcome?” he asked testily, trying to coax the scanners back online.

“I don’t much care either way, to be honest,” Amy answered nonchalantly, studying her fingernails. “Kind of peaceful out here. No madmen rearranging my circuits and dragging me past gravity wells.” He kicked the console power levels back up, causing the scanner panel to fizz ominously. “Oi!” she yelled, appearing beside him. “Watch it!”

“Whole panel’s knackered,” he grumbled, pulling out the sonic.

“Yeah, I’d say so! I wasn’t exactly designed to be your personal timelock drill!” 

“I know.”

“And?”

“It’s just a quick side project.” He scanned the linkages with the sonic. “Missy’s just one Time Lord, after all—it _should_ be doable.” He felt a flicker behind him.

“What do you mean, _just_ one Time Lord?” Romana asked hotly. He swung around to face her. “You’d be altering a human time stream!”

“I’d go in after the fixed point,” he said defensively. “Pick up Danny’s essence right before the structure collapses.”

“And you’ll hold this, ah, essence in what—a shoebox?” 

“I had a few ideas.”

“By all means, enlighten me.”

“Well there’s my own body, for one.” She scoffed.

“That sounds foolproof.”

“Couldn’t you have turned into the nice blonde one?” he demanded. He saw the ghost of a smile tug at her mouth.

“Oh, the last thing you need right now is a pat on the back. An equal who’s prone to challenge your more glaring errors—that’s what you need.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Right then. Well why don’t you start by reprogramming these scanners?” She lifted her chin and disappeared.

“But Doctor!” Jamie protested from the other side of the console. “I don’t know how!” He swung back around in frustration to see Jamie looking at him expectantly from under his mop of brown hair. The Doctor exhaled sharply, knowing he was being taunted but somehow unable to vent his anger. It was deeply disarming, that these echoes rattling around in the heart of the TARDIS could somehow be so immediate.

“Alright then, Jamie. You sit tight, then.” 

“A Scotsman now, aye?” Jamie asked warmly. “You’ve done me proud!”

“Have I?” he asked musingly, scrolling through the scanner programming to check for errors in the coding. “Grab me that universal keyboard, will you?”

“But Doctor, I’m holographic!” he protested. The Doctor shook his head sharply. This was enough to make an actual madman out of him.

“Right. Well let me know if you become unexpectedly corporeal.”

“Aye,” Jamie agreed easily.

He retrieved the keyboard himself and scanned rapidly through the coding—it couldn’t be the programming. It was a few minutes before he realized that the malfunction was actually due to a nanoseconds-long oscillation in time. “…almost as if,” he said aloud. “Almost as if some _infernal_ time machine had stalled herself out halfway into siege mode.” He looked up thunderously at Jamie.

“Don’t blame me, Doctor!” Jamie said earnestly. “It was for your own safety! You know, sometimes you get a wee bit carried away when you’re after something,” he added solicitously.

“Were you planning on _notifying_ me of our temporal situation?” the Doctor ground out.

“I think I just did, in a way,” Jamie said, as if the idea had just occurred to him. He paused. “I dinna mean to make you upset.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said shortly. “I know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “There _should_ be a way to bypass it. I did once evade that Sontaran freighter by jimmying her in and out of siege mode.” Jamie’s form flickered and changed.

“Show off,” Sarah Jane declared bemusedly. He exhaled sharply in frustration.

“Is there a _point_ to this or are you just taunting me to pass the time?” Sarah Jane gave him a thoughtful look.

“Can’t it be both?” 

“Alright, out with it then,” he growled. “Just _tell_ me whatever it is you want me to hear.”

“Right, then,” she replied neatly. “It’s a simple request, really.” Her hair flickered red.

“Cool it with the whole Mission: Nethersphere thing,” Amy said levelly. He tapped a toe.

“Is that supposed to sound authoritative when you say it?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Yes.”

“Ah.” They regarded each other fiercely. “Not going to rematerialize until I agree?” 

“Nope.”

“Could be awhile,” he said, testing. She studied her fingernails again.

“I’m not strictly organic, so. I’m guessing you run out of calories a lot faster than I run out of rift energy.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Oh?” She took a few steps toward him. “How long d’you think you’ve got? Because I’ve faced far worse than stubborn Scotsmen, you know.” Her face grew fierce. “I’ve been eye to eye with the beast below. I’ve sailed with pirates, yes, but I’ve also been ripped apart and left behind. I’ve seen silence, minotaurs, angels.” He suddenly felt off balance. “And besides, even if you ever did make it across—“ She flickered and suddenly Clara stood there, close enough to touch. “—don't think it could ever solve this.” He froze, and the TARDIS visual interface bent, flickered, and was gone. 

He clutched violently at the railing and held himself back from kicking something. Stupid, _stupid_ , to let their memories become a weakness even the TARDIS could exploit. Davros hadn’t been half so cunning. He felt his neck twinge again. She was desperate too, he realized. She was wounded, lashing out, manipulative out of necessity. He relaxed his grip and gingerly touched the console.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “I’ll put it on hold. You win this round, old girl.”

There was a wrenching groan from deep in the ship, a sudden lurch, and the central column hummed back to life. A grin flickered on his face.

“I thought you didn’t analyze audio data.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	9. it might be too sharp

It had taken a rather embarrassing amount of time for Clara to find her favorite running pants under her bed. Surely it couldn’t have been _that_ long since she had used them last. Fitness had been such an afterthought before—it was difficult to adjust to having to exercise intentionally. She tied up her hair and gave herself an appraising look in the mirror. Not bad. These weren’t her favorite running pants for nothing. 

She took the underground to a park Danny had never brought her to, forcibly ignoring the wisps of guilt that seemed to accompany the decision. She couldn’t avoid parks forever. She trooped off the tube and wound her way through the crowd, her hands stuffed into her jacket. The short crossing from the curb to the park entrance was utterly uneventful, as if nothing bad had ever happened there. She breathed in and out.

The day was bitingly cold, the jagged tree limbs stark against a grey sky. But then she had always been better at jogging that way, when she could fall into an easy rhythm and feel the warmth building up inside of her jacket. The ground was hard and constricted with cold, and she could hear each footfall on the asphalt. 

At first her lungs protested with every breath, and she struggled to stay focused. It was hard to keep her adrenaline from kicking in when for so long running had meant real danger. There had been a point when she couldn’t do this at all, when getting up to speed had left her breathless and wild, as if a measure of panic were stored in her muscles. A purely physical memory. Now she tried to keep her breathing under control, and at last she felt her body relax. She turned left down a less-populated path that wound through the woods, the conversations of other joggers fading until there was only her breathing and the unhurried rhythm of her feet. She could handle this.

Danny had always been so infinitely patient with the pace, she remembered. His every stride eclipsed hers, but somehow he always managed to go slow enough for her to keep up. It was the sort of thing she had been barely cognizant of at the time but now recalled with excruciating clarity. Her memories these days were a minefield of guilt. How funny that for all their cleverness it had come down to an accident of fate. A flash of steel, and he was gone. She had a brief vision of a ghostly car repeatedly careening around a corner, screeching forward and then disappearing, caught in a loop of absurd destiny.

But then Danny _had_ made a choice, she reminded herself. That was why the Doctor had been so unjustly livid that night—that night when he had stormed back in and out of her life with a swiftness that still made her queasy. For the first time, she considered that maybe his anger had meant he was also grieving, in a way. Not really for Danny—she wasn’t so sentimental as to think that—but maybe at least for what he represented. A future for her, a lifespan’s worth of companionship. She imagined it for a moment, the bittersweet combination of dislike and hope that Danny must have meant to him. She allowed herself to acknowledge it: he didn’t want to lose her. And yet he had let her go. The thoughts were a jaggedly dissonant combination that left her strangely off balance even as she jogged doggedly on. She remembered the words of Emma Grayling, the catalog of bitter lessons learned that reminded her that it was dangerous to assume that the Doctor worked that way. Maybe it had been ruthlessly easy for him to leave her behind. For all she knew, maybe having a mouthy terrestrial around would’ve been a liability now that he had found his home again. But then there had been a hollowness in his eyes that night. He hadn’t found what he was looking for. 

She struggled to bring her thoughts back to something mundane. The last thing she needed was to take on whatever mad issues the Doctor had brought onto himself. Groceries, lesson plans, Christmas decorations for her apartment—those were the small, tangible acts of taking care of herself that were her job. Looking out for moody aliens was _not_ on her to-do list. The fact that she missed it so profoundly only made her more suspicious.

And frustratingly, there was still that if, if, if, that unresolved question, that tightness in her stomach that persisted even as she deliberately planned her future as an utterly ordinary schoolteacher. She told herself it was another one of those habits of mind that came from traveling with the Doctor, the residue of those days when everything had been about extravagant promises and possibilities, about sights just beyond the horizon. Another habit that was really only a memory.

Danny had been wrong about one thing, she thought determinedly as she pushed her way up a hill. Those days hadn’t left her unable to look closely at what she had. The white-leaved wonders only made the sharp, bare branches around her more singular. She knew now that her planet was a fantastic rarity in a universe of fantastic rarities. It was the sort of outlook that made it very hard for her to take things like taxes and PTA meetings seriously, but it hadn’t made her uncurious or callous. It was one of the few things from her time with the Doctor that was hers to keep.

She reached the point where her looping path rejoined the main one, a wider drag dotted with dog-walkers and serious runners and strolling families. She knew she should take the larger way back to the park entrance—she would feel it tomorrow if she didn’t let up now. She slowed to a walk, her blistering feet protesting at the change. The rest of her responded effortlessly, and she recognized the buzzing energy of a runner’s high, her legs moving as if some unknown force were pushing them forward. She allowed herself one bad decision for the day and turned back, taking off again into the woods.

~~~

It came back again that night, that reoccuring dream of trying to understand an ancient, indecipherable book. Or maybe it had never left at all. Maybe it had been there every night, waiting just beyond the edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	10. ivory lines lead

Vastra had been right about at least one thing—the outfit Clara wore to school that day was one she secretly thought of as her utility outfit. It was only a practical button-down blouse and a skirt with rather capacious pockets, but she had scaled amber bluffs and outwitted grizzled alien drug lords in it. The only damage was a small tear near her waist that she had been able to fix herself, after some trial and error with a borrowed sewing kit. She found herself brushing the raised line of stitches with her fingertips throughout the day, an absentminded act of remembering.

Her prediction didn’t come into fruition until late in the day, when she was ducking back into her classroom to pack up after the last period, Adrian in tow talking her ear off about The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

“They can identify with it,” he was saying, straightening his bow tie, “because it’s really about hesitancy, about paralyzing indecision, which you must admit is the sort of thing these students may often face.”

“Oh?” she said politely.

“You know—‘Do I dare disturb the universe?’ It’s all there.”

“I see.”

“Of course, the tone of weary cynicism might be a bit too much for them—‘I’ve measured out my life in coffee spoons’ probably doesn’t pack quite the same punch for a fifteen-year-old.” He laughed a bit as if there was some joke they were both in on.

“I usually assign the more concrete modern poets,” she said honestly, digging through her desk drawer in search of her keys. “I’ve never had a class that didn’t enjoy Robert Frost.” 

“Yes, but you really should be getting them beyond that sort of thing.”

“Beyond what, exactly?” She felt an odd prescience, like light touch on the back of her neck, and she looked up to see the Doctor perched cross-legged on a desk in the middle of her classroom. They exchanged a glance, and she felt an absurd smile tugging at her mouth. 

“…Frost is lovely, don’t get me wrong,” Adrian was saying, “but he’s never going to expand their horizons quite like—“

“Thank you, Adrian; that’s quite enough,” the Doctor cut in. Adrian blinked, turned.

“I’m sorry...Mr. Smith?”

“Yes, well-spotted. Now please do leave.” 

“I…Pardon?” The Doctor hopped lithely down from the desk.

“You know—run along, scram, skedaddle,” he said at his most Scottish. Adrian’s consternation seemed to change to nervousness as the Doctor approached him, his expression deadly serious. “Shoo.” Clara tried to look less amused, for Adrian’s sake. 

“Right, of course,” the teacher said faintly. “I was just about to... Um, I’ll see you tonight at Brenda’s thing?” he asked Clara.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she lied blithely.

“Shoo,” the Doctor reiterated.

“Right, er, take care!” Adrian made something of a beeline for the exit. Clara turned to the Doctor, hands on her hips, as the classroom door banged shut.

“Was that necessary?” she asked, fighting a smile.

“More than you know.” He rubbed his forehead.

“You used to love Adrian!” 

“Yes, well. Priorities.” She paused. Ulterior motives.

“Found another mystery that needs solving?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. “Or are you here to apologize?” He leaned toward her across the desk.

“Clara. Your face is doing a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Trust me,” he said earnestly, as if the words were important. “It’s doing a thing.”

“Alright,” she conceded. “And?” 

“Maybe we could just skip the thing and go straight to the painless goodbye.” She tucked her hair behind an ear, registering the words. His expression was unreadable. 

“Painless sounds lovely,” she lied. Time Lord bastard.

“Right then!” he said, springing into action. “Pop quiz!” He paced along the whiteboard. “What’s the one thing I’ve always promised you but never really done?” She laughed hollowly.

“Oh, that’s quite a list.”

“Come on, one place. One fantastic destination. Well, not quite one. In terms of ratios, it’s more like everyplace. But we’ll call it one.” He picked up a whiteboard marker, as if considering the maths, then put it back down. “To be quite honest, it really isn’t my best idea. More sentimental than sensational. But it’s just stuck there, perpetuating its own idiocy.”

“Is this about Swiss army spoons again?” she quipped automatically. He pressed the edge of his thumb thoughtfully on his mouth.

“I suppose those are the ideas you have to watch out for—those innocent, unreasonable little ones that won’t go away. The little earworms. Bad Wolf. Time Lord Victorious.” His glanced at her, his eyes fierce and inscrutable. “Impossible Girl.”

“What are you on about?” she asked, arms crossed tightly. 

“Don’t you remember? Pop quiz. No need to worry; it’s just one question.” He paused for a moment, as if keeping tabs on himself. “It may even be a polite question: Do you want to come?”

“Come where?” she asked cagily. He gestured vaguely upward.

“You know. Out there. Just one idea. One little trip.” She imagined saying no, grabbing her keys and walking out of her classroom, never seeing him again.

“Yes, ok. One.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	11. i'm a lazy dancer

She watched his hands flicker over the console, awash in the pulsing hums and clamorous knocks of the TARDIS. It was a soundscape that had lost its freshness in her memory. She gripped the railing automatically when the materializing groan began, but he must have been careful this time, because there was only a slight shake.

“Where are we?” she asked, drifting to the view screen, forgetting to be aloof. She peered at the star-studded image. “We haven’t landed.”

“We’ve landed in reality,” he corrected distractedly, still making adjustments on the console. The TARDIS gave a series of delicate pings. 

“Yes, but we’re nowhere.”

“Or everywhere, depending on how you look at it.” She turned to regard his shadowed face. “Shall we go see?” She nodded curiously and followed him along the railing, her hand trailing on the cool metal. She felt his eyes on her even as he pulled open the doors.

Outside was the same darkness she had seen on the view screen, only this was real—a primal, physical darkness, an emptiness so complete it frightened her. Deep space. She took a cautious step forward and tried to focus on the clusters of cold, bright stars. But then they weren’t just clusters. More seemed to bloom into existence in every patch she studied, thick sweeps of distant, burning light filling the unfathomable black. Her bones told her it was deathly and strange, something to be feared. She wanted both to plunge into it and to never see it again.

“Not quite how it looks from down below,” she breathed. 

“Keeping watching,” the Doctor advised. “Your eyes are adjusting.” She felt him leave her side.

“Doctor?” She grabbed the doorframe to stave off vertigo. He was right. She could see more stars wherever she looked—every corner of space ablaze. She felt him next to her again.

“Here, take these.” She glanced down to see a pair of fairly preposterous-looking glasses and shook her head.

“I can’t.”

“They’re just Skrill Sights,” he said impatiently. 

“No, I mean I’m not letting go.” Even as she said it she felt a wave of profound dizziness, as if the lines of light were pulling her off balance.

“Well you needn’t worry about that.” And without further preamble he stepped out of the door and into nothingness. Her cry strangled in her throat when he didn’t drop out of sight—he turned instead to face her, standing casually on nothing at all at the mouth of the abyss. 

“ _What_?” she managed.

“See? No need to worry.” A smile was twitching on his lips.

“I am going to pay you back for this,” she threatened raggedly, her heart racing. 

“I’ll look forward to it.” She crouched down gingerly and reached a hand out of the door until her fingers hit it, something cold and solid and completely invisible. “It’s the TARDIS,” he explained gently. “You could say she’s grown a new external hallway for us, just not one that reflects light.” Clara ran her hand wonderingly along the surface. It did feel precisely like the TARDIS floor. “And I’ve extended the oxygen and gravity, of course, but that’s simple enough.”

“You sure she’s not going to, um, un-grow it?”

“It’s perfectly safe. We’ve had a bit of a chat—I don’t think she’s feeling particularly murderous today.” 

“Well _that’s_ comforting.”

“There should be some sort of tapering off effect at the ends. At least, that’s what I was going for in the programming.” She stood up and gave him a look. “In the very least, it’s as safe as any other part of the TARDIS.” 

“Oh?” He sighed.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you we had rope?”

“Marginally.”

“Good. We have rope. Now come out here.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Let me rephrase that: I’d feel better if we _used_ rope.” 

“I see.” He took a beat. “What if I told you, very convincingly, to trust me?” 

A few minutes later they were both tied to the console railing. Clara felt the reassuring slack trailing behind her as she watched the Doctor step out into the void once again.

“So you brought me all the way out here just to terrify me, did you?” she asked. The Doctor took her hand and pulled her gently but inexorably out into the darkness.

“You told me to show you the stars.” She felt her breath catch as she left visible ground and entered the starfield. She realized that she was absurdly expecting to feel some sort of breeze—it was impossible to wrap her mind around this still, silent expanse, empty and yet full to bursting. She glanced down, reeling, and almost gasped when she saw it spread out beneath them—a massive formation of luminous brown. Its edges extended in fantastic shapes, like roiling thunderclouds frozen in time, but the length of it blurred into obscuring purples and blues. It must have been the tip of the iceberg. “The Charon Nebula,” the Doctor said, following her gaze. “Stellar nursery.” Clara looked at him incredulously.

“You took me to a broken down _theme park_ before this?” He smiled slowly.

“Yes, but the theme park had a Spacey Zoomer,” he said, as if the merits of the Spacey Zoomer were self-explanatory. She realized she was still gripping his hand, and she let go quickly.

“How close are we to the nebula?” she asked self-consciously, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She could feel his eyes on her.

“What do you people measure things in these days—parsecs? Light years?”

“Light years,” she said firmly.

“Ten thousand light years, then, give or take. It’s about the minimum distance for a good view. Something happened, some millennia ago—a lot of those clusters are already dead. I’ve been meaning to look into it. The point is, the further away we are, the longer they live.” She felt her mouth twist into a smirk.

“A sky full of ghost stars. Morbid.” 

“I tend to think of it as living history.” Clara considered.

“I’ll bet you’ll give your species a run for their money.” She felt him tense up beside her.

“One can only hope.” She gave him an inquiring look. “You should try the Skrill Sights,” he added. He produced the ridiculous-looking glasses from his pocket, and she took them curiously. “They let you see other wavelengths of light. Mostly used for mining and rescue operations, but of course I’ve made them a lot more clever.” She put them on carefully—and immediately gripped his arm again.

“Holy—“ The space around her exploded with color, stars upon stars in places she thought could hold no more, fiery blues and yellows bursting across the darkness. “I think I need some air.”

~~~

They sat cross-legged on the exohallway, the Skrill Sights dangling from her fingers, and he told her about star formation, about tumultuous and luminous birth. It was a lesson from childhood, the sort of information that hadn’t been considered very useful at the Academy. He remembered repeating it over and over to himself when he had first had to sleep alone, as if remembering it all correctly were a magic formula that would keep him safe. 

He wondered if she were ever truly impressed. He should’ve taken her to see the northern lights, should’ve gate crashed an imperial ball and introduced her to Catherine the Great. Maybe that would’ve done it. Or he could’ve brought her to the mangrove forests of Vrin on a night when the poe fires were out. This was too close to the truth, a cross-section of his lonely expanse of the universe. Stars always looked better through an atmosphere.

She was poised to make a choice; he could read it on her. Maybe if he had been less difficult and demanding. Maybe if the TARDIS had let him get what she wanted. But those possibilities were meaningless now—this was closing time. All he could do was scramble to give her something worth remembering. 

He rubbed a hand on his knee, thinking of the empty space between everything. There should’ve been dancing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	12. cold smoke seeping out of colder throats

The TARDIS touched down in her closet with a lonely howl. She could see on the view screen that he had skipped a few hours—it was night now—but she didn’t mind. Making her miss Brenda’s party would’ve been his last laugh, if he had known. 

She refrained from telling him that his face was doing a thing. A dozen faces, but still those big, sad eyes. For some reason she was reminded of her dream, of endlessly flipping the pages of that ancient history book. Wars, dynasties, the rise and fall of civilizations. The people left behind. Funny that she should think of it now. 

She circled around the console, trying to imprint the feel of it, the familiar alien sights and sounds of it onto her memory. He just stood at the railing, watching her with that enigmatic rigidity.

“Where are you off too next?” she asked as lightly as she could manage. Her whole frame was tense—there was no relief from this.

“Oh, you know. Here and there. The mud flats of Xarabraios. Maybe a good cricket match.”

“Not home?” she asked unthinkingly. He paused.

“Maybe.” She couldn’t stop circling the console. For once she was the one with the nervous energy.

“It’s going to be rubbish teaching the ancient philosophers without imagining getting to knock on their doors and ask cheeky questions,” she admitted suddenly. “I always wondered whether Marcus Aurelius really fancied Faustina.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Have you met him?”

“No. I’ve met her.”

“Ah.” There was a pause.

“You’ll call me the next time earth gets into some ridiculous scrape.” 

“Of course.” She felt strung out, at a loss. It was so surreal to know that this was ending. It felt like she was witnessing it from the outside, powerless to change course. She reminded herself that this was better for both of them. “It’s you that really makes this so unfair, you know,” she murmured to the console. “I should be able to fly off into the sunset for once, so he can sit there and feel pathetic.”

“The figurine,” the Doctor said suddenly. “The toy soldier.” She stopped pacing. “Would you tell me?”

“Gallifrey,” she said simply, gazing at him across the central column. “I gave it to you on Gallifrey.” She thought she saw him flinch. Something in her mind clicked into place, and she put a hand to her mouth, the weight of it washing over her. How had she not known? She approached him carefully, but he was already at the controls, already punching something into the universal keyboard.

“I should go,” he pronounced.

“The phone,” she said abruptly. “How am I supposed to reach you?”

“Any phone to the TARDIS phone—you have the number,” he grated out. “Are you sure you’re qualified to teach children?” She leaned over the control panel; he avoided her gaze.

“But you see, it shouldn’t work,” she said sadly, as if she were making it happen by saying it. “You shouldn’t be living in the TARDIS anymore. Not on Gallifrey. I’ve seen it, Doctor; I’ve seen the cities.” His hands paused over the controls. She watched his profile. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked quietly. 

“Maybe. But I want to hear you say it.” She wondered again how she hadn’t seen it before—it was in every line of him. He looked up, dragged a hand through his hair.

“You’re making this difficult, you know.” He looked at her, and she felt her chest constrict. “Which is saying something, because I’m generally quite clever at leaving.”

“Tell me,” she insisted. He put a hand to the back of his neck.

“Right,” he breathed. He took a moment. “First to let you go. You know that. Would’ve been brilliant if we hadn’t both outsmarted each other.” He considered. “Then…I suppose to give you a chance.”

“For what?”

“You know. To do whatever you chose. Be living history. And I suppose to give a good man his due.” He shook his head. “It’s high time I slunk off, Clara. I was trying to cheat the system, thinking I could watch you be brilliant without changing you. I forgot the observer effect. Elementary mistake. Zoe would’ve been appalled.” He bit lightly on the edge of his thumb, then seemed to recall himself and put his hands in his pockets. “I’m sure that was unwise, but there you have it.” She felt overwhelmed by something, her stomach tight with a tension that had been tugging at her since she had first locked eyes with him on that devastating winter day. Nothing felt like it should.

“Can I ask you something?” Something in her snapped into the present, there in these last moments on the TARDIS, the Doctor looking at her like she was already gone. “Could I borrow a piece of paper and a spoon?” He raised his eyebrows incredulously.

“Sensible request,” he said, as if to save face. She grabbed a pen from a crevice in the console where she always had a few stashed.

“Ok, I lied. I don’t need a spoon. I was trying to indulge you on that whole Swiss army spoon thing, but it really is rubbish.” She thought she saw a trace of amusement in him. 

“Suit yourself.”

“Paper would be nice, though.” He produced a scrap from somewhere in his jacket. “This part might take a bit,” she cautioned. 

She unfolded the crinkling paper. It turned out to be torn from some sort of Russian newspaper, covered in smeared Cyrillic. She leaned on the console and found a blank space on the paper, letting herself remember what her subconscious had been working on for so long. The folds of the TARDIS psychic interface were just nudging her left elbow—maybe that was what made the images appear so readily, like they had been waiting there on the edge of her mind. She sketched out the interlocking symbols one by one. 

Miraculously, he waited without fidgeting. Almost as soon as she had finished it, she wondered what she had done. Her nervous energy came flooding back—her fingers trembled as she recapped the pen.

“Alright,” she said, a bit too loudly. He appeared over her shoulder. “If you wouldn’t mind telling me what this means.” She felt him recoil as if he had been stung. There was silence. Then—

“Clara.” His voice was on the edge of dangerous. He picked up the paper gingerly. “Where did you see this?” She turned to face him.

“I remembered it,” she said, her heart in her throat.

“That’s impossible.” He crumpled the paper almost reflexively and put it in his pocket. “Why do you insist on being impossible?” She watched him warily. “Is this—are you telling me something? Are you—who are you?” She felt a sudden rush of anger.

“Somehow I really, _really_ thought we were past this.” He inhaled sharply.

“Yes. Old habits.” He took her gently by the shoulders. “I just—Clara, I need to understand.” 

“What is there to understand? I dreamed it, and then I remembered it,” she said sharply. “That’s all there is to know.”

“Please,” he said, his voice raw. “Just—what do you remember?” She saw the desperation in his eyes, remembered that he was hunted, alone. 

“I don’t know what else there is. I can try.” She breathed in and out and let the memory wash over her. “I don’t know when. I know where. But also I didn’t—I was lost. It was coming; it was just behind me, and I had to hide—I couldn’t stop running. There were so many miraculous things. A pool, a cricket field. How was there a cricket field? I thought it was impossible. And then there was a library. The book was so old, so heavy with the weight of death.” 

“ _The History of the Time War_ ,” he breathed.

“They knew what you had done. What you changed. Knew that you had killed them all.”

“That’s why I keep it,” he said gently. “As a reminder. But Clara, how could you read it? The TARDIS wouldn’t have translated it—it’s in her native language.”

“You lied to me,” Clara said, the memory of that terror welling up inside of her. “Those creatures—one of them was me. Why would you lie to me?” He put a hand on her cheek.

“Because I was afraid, Clara. Funny how much more often that happens with you around.” She felt strangely light-headed.

“I found it in that book—I found your name.”

“Clara, Clara,” he said, his hand still on her cheek and in her hair. “This is important. How could you read it? How did you know?” 

“I wasn’t supposed to learn circular Gallifreyan,” she said distantly. “They had me in the lower class. I wanted to learn—I snuck in. That was how I got into the Academy too. No one gets to be a Time Lord without cheating a little.”

“Clara,” he said, as if something inside him were breaking. She breathed in and out, tried to clear her head.

“Sorry. Too many memories. But this one wasn’t another life—it was a…a big friendly button.” She looked at him searchingly. “Why would you keep it from me?”

“I thought I was protecting you,” he admitted. “Additionally, I was an idiot.” She nearly smiled.

“You were.” He looked relieved, but only for a moment.

“You shouldn’t be able to remember these things, Clara.” He stroked a thumb tenderly across her cheek. “You’ll be on your own—you have to be careful.” She smiled sadly.

“I’ve been knocking about the universe with a madman. Taken care of both of us. I think I can handle it.” He mouth twisted into a knowing smile.

“Quite right.” But he was still looking at her like she was already gone.

“But your name. You’re supposed to tell me what it means.” His other hand found her hair, her neck.

“Time Lord names don’t have meanings. You’re supposed to give meaning to the name, not the other way around.” He traced her clavicle.

“So why the nickname, then?” She was hot, cold, breathless.

“I wanted a new meaning.”

“And then it turned on you. Came to mean something else.”

“Words are funny things.” Her skin was tingling beneath his hands.

“You keep looking at me like I’m a ghost.” She tilted her head. “Maybe it’s all the same to you, but I’m not one.” His fingers found the nape of her neck.

“Clara,” he growled. “If you want to leave, now is the time.” She smiled slightly, her body tense with expectation, that knot in her stomach seeming to tug toward him.

“Impossible.” His hand slipped down her back and pulled her roughly toward him—his mouth was on hers again, a familiar, crushing taste, pleasure and pain, only now there was no ending, no denial, no regaining control. She could feel his whole body shiver and breathe—his hand found skin—her waist—she pushed his jacket down his shoulders and onto the console floor.

Somehow she managed to get him out of the TARDIS and into her bedroom, pulling him by the shirtfront. Her mind surfaced briefly to ask her what the hell she was doing—she stepped back—his hand still held her waist, like the space between them was pain, but she still heard his breath catch as she slipped off her shirt. He cursed softly—she almost laughed aloud, but instead she pulled him off balance. Then he was on her again, hungrily reclaiming the ground he had lost—she wanted his weight on her; it was an age of aching before they were crawling up her unmade bed. His hand slid under her skirt, and she wondered fleetingly if he were good at this—his other hand was still in her hair, his voice in her ear, whispering, growling her name. She made quick work of his shirt—he was less patient with her skirt, and she heard the fabric tear. 

He only stopped once.

“Clara.” His eyes found hers. “Are you—” His voice was desperate and controlled all at once, a study in Time Lord melancholy. God, he looked good with his hair tousled.

“I could think of a few conditions. If you want.” He grinned wolfishly.

“Infuriating.”

“Tell me about it.”

~~~

She wanted him to never stop looking at her like that. It was safety and reckless danger—he traced patterns on her stomach until her thoughts lost their borders and she pressed him into the mattress again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	13. just one more step i could let go

She woke once to a sustained knocking at the front door, but drifted off again as soon as it stopped. 

It was either minutes or hours later when she woke up again—she had been entirely elsewhere in her dreams. She stretched her limbs experimentally and felt the weight of that night in her body, a flash of memory for every tender section of skin. It was strange to feel the realness of it, to know that it hadn’t grown insubstantial in the sunlight. Her gaze traveled blearily across her bed and up her dresser, to where the Doctor sat fully dressed and cross-legged in front of her mirror, looking as severe as he could surrounded by an assortment of jewelry and hairbrushes and purple vials of hair product. It was so odd and yet so like him that she barely registered it as a surprise. He seemed utterly tense, as if waiting for her to make the first move.

“Please tell me you haven’t been watching me sleep like some bloody madman,” she remarked, propping herself up on her elbows. He ran a hand through his thoroughly disheveled hair. 

“I found a robe, in case you wanted it,” he said, almost defensively. She followed his gaze to the other side of the bed.

“That’s a coat,” she told him levelly.

“Ah. Well. Close enough.” He paused. “I was thinking breakfast in Imperial Moscow.” She looked at him incredulously.

“You want to take me to a Russian city before the advent of central heating.” He ran a hand through his hair again.

“You might want to bring…several more coats.” She shook her head slowly. There was no denying it—he was calm, impeccably dressed, but he was a mess. She wondered briefly how Time Lords compartmentalized regret. “We don’t have to go in winter,” he added. “It’s probably a sunny 5 Celsius this time in April.” Something else was bothering her too—she kept feeling like she was hearing voices from below.

“Did you hear that knocking this morning?” she asked suddenly.

“Oh yes, about a quarter hour ago. I fixed it.”

“Fixed it?”

“Some group of assorted family, demanding to be let in,” he said, clearly still annoyed at their existence. She felt a dim throb of worry.

“Not _my_ family.”

“No, the High Council of Rassilon, dropping by for tea.” She sat up and flicked her hair out of her face. 

“But why would—“ Her worry was beginning to shape itself into a more specific shade of panic. She pulled on the black trench coat he had laid out so carefully beside her. “I mean, they _were_ supposed to…” She looked at him suspiciously. “You _wouldn’t_ have.”

“I likely would, all things being equal,” he said distractedly. She smiled slightly despite herself and slid out of bed toward the window. There was a thin blanket of snow outside—that hadn’t been there before, but then it could’ve happened overnight. Her cell phone—where was it? The Doctor had somehow managed to park the TARDIS directly in her closet—she snapped to open the doors and pattered inside to find her purse balanced on the console. Maybe he was mistaken; maybe he had shooed away a group of carolers or…solicitors. Those blokes who came by and asked what you were paying for your cable. She rifled through her purse, trying to ignore the bits of outerwear that were still strewn across the metal floor. Or it could’ve been…a package delivery? She exhaled in relief when she found her phone, yanking it out and unlocking it rapidly. The white numbers were unmistakable.

“Oh _shit_.”

The Doctor was hopping down lithely from her dresser when she emerged.

“ _You_ ,” she said thunderously. He took a step back. “Do you even _look_ at the coordinates when you punch them in, or do you just pick at random, like some bloody wheel of fate?”

“What are you on about?”

“It’s _Christmas_ , Doctor. It is Christmas Day. You picked me up four days ago at school, and you brought me back on Christmas bloody Eve!” His face registered the information with surprise.

“Ah.”

“I have fifteen voicemails and God knows how many text messages from people trying to make sure I hadn’t bloody disappeared—which I _had_ , thanks to you.”

“It’s really a _bit_ more complicated than ‘punching in’ the coordinates—“

“I was supposed to be with family! I was supposed to go to parties! I was supposed to _host_ a party, before you told everyone to clear off!” He raised an eyebrow.

“When did I do that?”

“This morning. When you answered the door and did your best grumpy Time Lord and told them to leave.” She pushed her bangs out of her face.

“Oh, no need to worry about that,” he said easily. “I let them in.” She froze. He was somehow looking rather pleased with himself. “I told them you were still in bed—that seemed to shut them up.”

“You _didn’t_.” She felt a distinct variety of pure panic, a kind she only ever felt when family was involved.

“So that’s sorted—you get a nice family Christmas; I pop off to some other solar system—everything works out in the end.” He flashed a Cheshire cat smile and grabbed his sonic from her bedside table.

“Doctor,” she said warningly.

“But we’ll always have Moscow,” he added, stowing the screwdriver neatly in his jacket.

“Doctor, don’t you _dare_. You _have_ to fix this.” He pushed open the blue doors.

“You see, I’m still of the opinion that all’s well that ends well.”

“Just _take_ me back four days.” 

“Can’t. Sorry. Happy Christmas.” 

“ _Doctor_!” He wheeled on her in frustration.

“Do I have to explain _everything_ to you? You have messages on your phone—your family’s downstairs—you’re a part of this now.” He stepped toward her and deftly fixed a crease in her collar. “Not to mention that the TARDIS has been tetchy as it is. There’s no way you’re getting her to rewrite reality.” 

“You had _better_ not be lying to me,” she relented.

“I never lie to girls in trench coats,” he said with all apparent seriousness. Her eyes widened. Was that…rakish?

“ _Please_ tell me you don’t have some sort of coat fetish.”

“So now that we have that sorted—“ She snapped the TARDIS doors closed.

“ _Oh_ no. You are _not_ going to leave me alone here.” 

“Clara,” he said dangerously.

“You can’t just let my family into my apartment on Christmas bloody morning and then disappear!” 

“Oh, come on, they’ll be easy. Just tell them it was some sort of inspection—people always go for that one.”

“No, people accept it in the short term because you have psychic paper and are obviously insane.”

“Make it more believable then—say that I’m surprisingly dashing for an inspector.”

“Doctor,” she ground out, “I _need_ you to stay.” Something seemed to throw him off. He ran a hand through his hair in consternation.

“Clara, Clara, Clara. You know I really, really don’t do…” he waved his hands around a bit. “…this. On the scale of ‘Not Me,’ families are probably higher than homicide. Although I must say I did once get on quite well with a homicidal Ood that—” 

“You’ve _met_ my family before, remember?” she said dangerously, taking a deliberate step toward him. “Last Christmas? The naked disaster Christmas, as my Aunt Belinda still calls it? I was trying to _fix_ that this year.” He took a step back.

“Yes, I _really_ don’t see the problem here.” She looked at him squarely, crackling with indignation.

“Doctor, I have been spirited _four days_ into the future; I have exactly _nothing_ prepared for a party that I begged to host so I could redeem myself as a functioning adult; I have just had a night of mad sex with an alien life form; and my family was greeted this morning by a strange man who told them I was _still in bed_.” He was in retreat; she had almost backed him up against the wall.

“Right. Clara.” He almost took her by the shoulders, then seemed to think better of it. “As much as I hate to disappoint people in trench coats—“

“Again with the coats! Look,” she said evenly. “All I need is for you to go downstairs, make small talk, and do your very best impression of a non-insane human while I get dressed. Does that sound achievable?” He looked at her curiously.

“You don’t want me to tell the truth.”

“Of _course_ not.” He seemed to brighten, just the smallest bit.

“You want deep cover.”

“Oh yes,” she said firmly. “I want deep cover.” He seemed to consider the proposition.

“I don’t have my groundskeeper uniform.” She almost laughed in disbelief. Instead, she grabbed his shirtfront and marched him to her bedroom door. He looked so honestly flummoxed that she took pity on him and conjured a backstory. 

“You are not a groundskeeper; you are a work colleague of mine called the Doctor.” She let go of his shirt and smoothed the creases. “You travel a lot for your job, but you’re very vague about what that job actually is. We’ve been casually dating, but you are on _very. Thin. Ice._ Sound good?” He seemed distracted.

“Has anyone ever pointed out your similarity to an oncoming storm?” She pushed him out of her bedroom door.

“Deep. Cover.”

~~~

She knew she didn’t have the time, but she allowed herself the luxury of a shower. She rested her head for a moment on the tile wall, feeling the warm water run down her back. As if this weren’t already enough of a mess. She tried to push aside the memories of last night that still clung to her—there was no way she was going to salvage this if she were still dealing with…that. She cursed softly. This was supposed to show her family that everything was ok again, that she was fine, that they no longer had to speak in low tones about Danny when they thought she couldn’t hear. This was supposed to make her gran stop worrying, to make her dad stop micromanaging. To say that she had already failed was an understatement.

She forced herself to turn off the water. The strangest bit, she realized, was the unthinking relief it was to have the Doctor there, despite the fact that he was probably currently terrorizing her family with absurd small talk. And after she had spent a year learning not to depend on him. If he was on thin ice, she was freezing in the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	14. i trail in all your clouds of glory

What Clara could hear as she descended the stairs sounded uncomfortably like the Doctor elaborating on the merits of bananas, and she hastened down to interrupt before he got any further. She was greeted by a veritable chorus of Happy Christmas’s (and one quite pronounced “Oh _there_ she is”) before she even got there. Through some miracle, she had left the living room in fairly respectable shape, and it was comfortably packed with a group of ten-some family members. Her gaze flicked briefly to the Doctor, who was stood in the corner only looking slightly hostile. Then her cousin Marlene reached her with a hug, and she made the rounds as best she could, apologizing for her absence and deflecting questions with some of the more plausible excuses she’d come up with in the shower—she’d had to help out with the faculty party; a friend from college had come round with an emotional crisis on Christmas Eve; she’d lost her phone charger and all the shops were closed. 

“Now, _I_ fell asleep early on Christmas Eve,” Gran was saying, “but leaving your poor father to do the Yule log alone!”

“We don’t need to keep bringing up the Yule log,” her dad interjected testily. “The point is that you had us all worried.”

“I know, I know—I’m sorry, Dad,” she said with as much sincerity as she could muster between hugging her Aunt Belinda and cousin Charles. “I was just as stressed about it, I promise. Bad break up, you know. It was too late for Gran’s by the time I had gotten her calmed down.”

“And on Christmas Eve!” Gran put in compassionately. “I don’t know what the young men are about these days.”

“I’m not seeing a tree, Clara!” her uncle Joel chimed in. “You part of that whole secularize Christmas movement now?”

“Christmas trees aren’t even Christian,” her teenage cousin Peter snarked from the corner. “They’re from a pagan ritual.”

“Buying charity presents and saying ‘Happy Holidays’ to people at supermarkets?” Uncle Joel continued loudly.

“It’s just been so busy here!” Clara said brightly.

“Apparently so,” her dad muttered. It was clear the best she could hope for was damage control.

“A more interesting question,” the Doctor remarked, pacing along the wall, “is what the trees have gotten out of those centuries of worship.”

“Who _is_ that man?” her Aunt Jude asked crabbily from the couch.

“Right!” Clara said, trying not to look flummoxed. She glanced nervously over at the Doctor, silently willing him to look less like an angry owl. “Everyone, this is the Doctor.” She paused for a second—he hadn’t introduced himself as John Smith, had he? And honestly, what kind of name was ‘the Doctor’? It sounded like some sort of absurd status thing. “We know each other from work, and he happened to be in the area today, um, and I guess he got here a little early.” That wasn’t quite what she had told him to say, was it? Was anyone noticing the difference? “So, um, just a work friend,” she reiterated. “All very casual.” She made the mistake of glancing back at the Doctor, who for some reason looked distinctly amused. “He is not a medical Doctor,” she added impulsively. She tried to bring it back in. “Doctor, I think you’ve met my family?” She mentioned their names one by one—it was like cataloguing everyone she had confused and disappointed that day. 

“Spectacularly inefficient custom,” she heard the Doctor murmur.

“Now can I please get everyone something to drink immediately?” she added. _Preferably alcoholic_ , she thought desperately.

“Oh, Clara, I brought you some wine; I wasn’t sure where to put it since there isn’t exactly…a tree,” Aunt Belinda said delicately, pulling a thin gift bag out from behind the sofa.

“I thought there’d be lunch,” Aunt Jude said loudly.

“Yes, yes, absolutely! Just sit back, relax—it’s all under control,” Clara bluffed, taking the wine gratefully.

“You got any beer?” Uncle Joel asked gamely.

“All I need is a vitamin water,” Aunt Belinda informed her.

“I’ll be right back!” Clara sang, ducking through the dining room and into the kitchen before anyone could give her more impossible orders. She set the wine bottle on the counter with a thud and slumped against the wall. Disaster. 

She gave herself a good thirty seconds to wallow. Then she put a hand to her forehead and stood up. This was it. She had about ten minutes to get a drink into everyone’s hands before this melted into fiasco. She’d been privy to enough faculty meeting catering mishaps to know: if everyone had a drink and some sort of snack, there was a chance to salvage things. If not, there was mutiny.

It was time to shift into high gear. Surely she _must_ have some crowd-pleasing two liters somewhere. She yanked open her pantry door and rifled through the array of nonperishables in the back. A few minutes later, she emerged triumphantly with two bottles of sparkling cider—probably leftover from last year’s get-together, but cider lasted forever, right? That was science. Now if only she could find some tiny napkins and an ice bucket. And maybe a Christmas-y centerpiece.

“Need any help?” asked a friendly voice. She spun around to see her cousin Marlene at the pantry door.

“Oh, thank heavens it’s you,” Clara breathed, relaxing incrementally. “I thought it was Aunt Belinda coming to ask very politely for some specific flavor of vitamin water.” Marlene snorted.

“No, she’s out there discreetly tidying things up.” Clara smiled weakly. “I was going to say sorry my parents couldn’t make it, but it looks like you have your hands full already.” Clara exhaled ruefully at the understatement. “You ok there, Clarebear?” 

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” She realized that might not be too convincing coming from someone who was essentially hiding in the pantry. She held up the bottles of sparkling cider. “You think I could get away with spiking these?”

“I mean, if you used vodka…” Clara shook her head in defeat.

“Don’t have any.”

“Steve and his crazy fiancé are supposed to be coming anyway,” Marlene conceded. “She’d probably have a conniption.” 

“You think she’s pregnant?” 

“Nah. Just uppity.”

“Gran’s convinced she’s pregnant.” Marlene shrugged.

“Who knows, then. Gran’s usually weirdly right about those things. Want me to put those out for people?” she added, as if taking pity on her.

“Yes, _please_.” Marlene grabbed the ciders and held them in the crook of her arm.

“Got any Solo cups?”

“Yes,” Clara answered firmly, as if believing would make them appear. She was rewarded with the sight of a plastic package peeking out from behind several boxes of instant rice pilaf. “Aha!” She dove for the cups. “See? Everything’s under control.” Her cousin looked mostly sympathetic and only slightly doubtful. But she did take the cups.

Clara spent the next few minutes collecting what supplies she could and repeating “high gear!” in her head like it was some sort of motivational magic. Her best finds were a pack of her dad’s favorite beer in the back of the fridge and an off-brand soda from some PTA meeting. She popped the tops off two beers and brought the drinks out with a bowl of olives. 

Almost automatically, she scanned the room for the Doctor to make sure he wasn’t up to anything too obviously insane. Incredibly, he seemed engaged in a conversation with Charles and Uncle Charlie about ancient Egyptian tree worship. She felt a trickle of relief.

“More drinks on the way!” she announced with a forceful exuberance, setting the olives and the two-liter on a side table where Marlene had deposited the cups and sparkling cider.

“About time,” she heard her Aunt Jude mutter. 

“Let me know if you need any help, Clara,” her dad said darkly from the loveseat. 

“Oh, do stop that, William. She’s doing fine,” Gran admonished. Clara gave her a grateful look and squeezed past the coffee table to offer her dad a beer—he looked pleasantly surprised about it, so that was something. 

“Do you have any Mountain Dew?” her cousin Peter asked, pouring himself a soda.

“I can check,” she said, trying not to sound like she hadn’t already been ransacking her pantry for the past ten minutes. She made her way to her Uncle Joel to stuff a beer in his hand.

“Clara!” the Doctor stage whispered, materializing behind her. “Clara, this is worse than I thought it would be.” 

“Yes, well maybe you should pay the slightest bit of attention to where you set your coordinates,” she muttered over her shoulder.

“Are you sure these are the same people I met before?” She turned to face him in exasperation.

“Yes, I’m _pretty_ sure.” He looked around him with an expression of dumbfounded distaste.

“They’ve gotten so much more…yappy.”

“You seemed fine enough with Charles and his dad. What happened to Charles and his dad?”

“Oh, I put them on hold.”

“You put them—you know that’s only for phones, right? Please tell me you know that’s only for phones.” She glanced nervously at Uncle Charlie—he was looking directly at them, clearly bewildered.

“That beer for me?” Uncle Joel asked her jovially from across the couch. She looked down at the beer in her hand.

“Oh. Yes!” she said, recalling herself. She squeezed around the sofa.

“Official brew of the Oswalds!” he said, taking the bottle. “Can’t say I agree with Will on that one. Nothing against the service, though,” he chortled. She summoned up a hollow laugh from somewhere. 

“Well, let me know if you need anything else.”

“I hope you’re not realizing you got in over your head, having all of us here,” he continued paternally. 

“Oh no, of course not!” 

“I’ve known you for pretty long now, I’d say. Since about…”

“Since I was born,” she filled in dutifully, trying to keep her tone chipper. She swore she saw the Doctor actually roll his eyes on the other side of the couch.

“Well, I’ll be. So I’d say I know when things are too much for you. Admit it—you bit off more than you could chew. It’s the teaching, what does it. Your mum was just the same, God rest her, with the cooking. You’ve got your own little classroom, and you’re good with the kiddies, so you think can be the boss anywhere now.” He chortled appreciatively at her fixed smile.

“I’d stop there,” the Doctor interjected, a repressed steel in his voice. “Underestimating her doesn’t get you too far before you get a slap in the face.” Clara’s eyes widened.

“What’s that, now?” Uncle Joel asked, craning to face him.

“Unless of course you’re purposefully underestimating her to goad her on. In which case…” he seemed to consider it. “No, still not worth it. She doesn’t need it, and you still get a slap in the face.”

“ _Doctor_.” Her uncle seemed to take the whole exchange as a joke.

“Slap in the face, maybe so!” he chuckled. “Women these days. But Clara couldn’t hurt a fly.” He gave her shoulders an affectionate squeeze.

“Do you normally let him get away with saying things like that?” the Doctor asked her conversationally. “Is there a protocol?”

“Doctor,” Clara said quickly, “can you help me out in the kitchen?”

“Better watch out,” Uncle Joel said jovially, like he was in on some sort of joke. “It’s back to her domain now.”

“Has no one else noticed that this man keeps saying idiotic things?” the Doctor asked the party at large.

“Alright!” Clara said loudly, circling around the couch. “I’m going to rustle up a few more things; you guys enjoy yourselves!” She did her best to maintain a sunny smile while nearly hauling the Doctor to the kitchen.

“With warm soda and a bunch of olives?” Aunt Jude asked crabbily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	15. can you hear my voice break

“Brilliant,” he proclaimed, once they’d reached the relative safety of the kitchen. “Now we just need to find a way out from here.” She pushed her bangs back from her forehead.

“Sorry?”

“Here we are—window.” He paced over to inspect the window latch by her sink; she followed him automatically to make sure he didn’t break anything. “Small but possible. Unless your house has some sort of air duct system?”

“Look. That was a…temporary evacuation. Not an escape plan.” He wheeled on her.

“So what’s the escape plan?” She gave him a rueful look.

“It’s family. There is no escape plan.” He looked slightly baffled. “And while we’re on the subject, can you _please_ try not to call my family members idiots?” She saw his lip curl.

“I see. Because you’re tied to these people through some obscure line of genetic material? If we’re going with that route, we can’t insult the Slitheen.” He considered. “Or mice, in your case. Maybe in my case too, if I got that STR analysis right.” For some reason she kept coming back to her conversation with Marlene. It seemed bizarre until something clicked. “Not that it’s a problem—I’ve always liked mice.” 

“Oh. _God_.” She put a hand on his mouth and pulled him into the pantry, the door banging shut behind them.

“Clara, I’m not going to say I _don’t_ like the manhandling—“ She heard the sonic buzz, and the overhead light came on. 

“Doctor, _tell_ me I’m not going to have a time baby,” she demanded.

“Of course not,” he said easily. She put a hand to her forehead in relief. 

“You’re _sure_.”

“Yes, of course I’m sure. I scanned you first thing this morning.” She looked at him in disbelief.

“The first thing you thought to do this morning was to _scan_ me?!”

“What was I supposed to do, just lie there in mental stagnation?” He flicked the sonic again, and the overhead light turned blue.

“If this whole thing turns out to be some sort of glorified science experiment, I will literally detach something from you.”

“You should really try to control those violent urges.” She heard a distinct coughing noise from outside the pantry and put a hand to his mouth again. It happened again—definitely a cough. Clara cleared her throat and stuffed a 24-pack of mini chip bags into his arms.

“Right—there it is!” she said loudly. “If you could just take these out to the party—“ she pulled open the pantry door to see Marlene on the other side, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. “Ah!” she pronounced in what she hoped was a tone of bright normalcy. “Need anything?”

“Nothing at all,” Marlene said broadly, tapping a black-painted fingernail on her arm. “Just thought you might need some more help. In case you have your hands full.” Clara coughed.

“This is just a bag of bags,” the Doctor said from behind them. “What exactly is the point of a bag of bags?”

“Just—set it somewhere,” Clara said in mild desperation. “They can handle it.”

“Alright, but then I’m trying the window.” Clara wheeled on him.

“Doctor,” she hissed. “You _owe_ me.” She edged onto her tiptoes just slightly. He just looked at her, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Not for long,” he said finally.

“Fine.”

“Oncoming storm,” she thought she heard him mutter as he left the room. She crossed to the counter and grabbed her recipe tin in a way that she hoped projected efficiency and purpose. 

“Look,” Marlene said broadly. “I’m going to just throw this out there. You spent the last three days shagging that old guy.” Clara nearly dropped the tin.

“Oh god— _tell_ me that’s not what you’re all thinking.”

“I mean, no judgment here. He’s kind of a fox.” Clara made an incoherent sort of strangling noise. “Plus it’s been all of half an hour and he’s already called out Uncle Joel on his shit. So, yeah. Tentative thumbs up.” Clara made another incoherent contribution to the conversation. “I mean, I’m not gonna lie—you _have_ been talking this party up for like a month. But hey, if you’re getting some, own it.” Clara hoped fervently that it wasn’t actually general consensus that she was emerging from three days of wild sexual adventure. 

“Right. Thanks, Marlene,” she said faintly.

“I always knew you were freaky!” her cousin added triumphantly.

“Oh heavens; please stop.”

~~~

Clara set her cousin the task of making sure everyone had a drink and a snack of their liking—extra ice for Aunt Jude, some pretzels for her dad—and then started prepping for dinner with a sort of mad desperation. The lack of key ingredients was something of a hindrance, but she assured herself that she could pull this one out. There was no actual turkey—that was the biggest hitch—but there was always something you could do with potatoes. Everyone loved potatoes. Even now, they were probably eating Lay’s out of a snack pack she had bought to reward her students with. She put a hand to her forehead and set the teakettle to boil.

“Why on earth did you tell Aunt Belinda you had vitamin water?” Marlene asked, sauntering into the kitchen with a glint of annoyance.

“I figured she’d have some wine and forget about it?” Clara offered, trying to get the sticky pudding dough to cohere. “I did get as far as dying some water red—maybe you could giver her that?” Marlene rolled her eyes and stalked back out with a bowl of mini gherkins.

Clara almost felt the Doctor coming before he appeared at the kitchen door.

“Good news and bad news, Clara,” he said, grabbing a baby carrot. “Good news is that my debt to you has been repaid with a mountain of small talk. I’m the king of small talk. I could win a Venetian plebiscite.” He leaned on the counter beside her. “Next time you try to do that thing with your eyes—you don’t have anything on me.”

“Oh, that is so far from true.” 

“The bad news is that I’ve been gauging it carefully, and I’m starting to suspect that they aren’t too keen on this.” She almost laughed.

“Starting to suspect? You probably don’t want to be bragging about that man of the people thing just yet.” He crunched noisily on the carrot.

“Other good news is that it would be pretty easy to push them over the edge. Take away their sustenance, and I’d say they’ll be out in an hour, tops.” She extracted the pudding basin from the top shelf.

“Not to dwell on the negative, but this is the second Christmas _in a row_ that you’ve obliterated.” He finished his carrot thoughtfully.

“You’ve gone all twitchy. Does that mean everything’s falling apart in here?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I have everything under control.” The oven beeped and she jumped. What on earth had she set it for? “And you of all people are _not_ allowed in here. Your job is to stay out there and tell funny anecdotes while being _very_ vague on the details. Cooking is about cool, collected control, and you are _mayhem_.” The water for the pudding—that was it. She lifted a lid to see it obediently boiling away and grabbed a pair of rubber bands to finish the wrapping.

“Are you meant to be doing that wrong?” he asked conversationally.

“Doing _what_ wrong?”

“The pudding. You’re trying to steam it, right? That’ll be a disaster.”

“What on earth do you know about steaming a pudding?”

“Nothing really, but I do have more than an elementary grasp of physics, and that’ll never do. The rubber bands’ll snap in that water.” He finished his carrot and began rummaging through his jacket pockets.

“They will _not_. I’ve looked it up on a web forum; you’re supposed to use rubber bands.”

“Too much plastic in those—they won’t stand up to the heat.” He appeared behind her with a length of string. “Move,” he suggested, dismantling her slapdash lid of aluminum foil and parchment paper and neatly reaffixing it with the string. “Better?” 

“Alright then, gadgeteer genius,” she said huffily, depositing the pudding into the boiling water and grabbing an egg timer.

“How long on that?” he asked from beside her. “Because they’re starting to get tetchy.”

“About, um, three hours,” she said weakly. They locked eyes for a moment. 

“Any way we can stun them into unconsciousness for a bit?”

“God, I wish.” He began rummaging in his pockets again. “I do _not_ mean that literally,” she added quickly. The teakettle began to squeak, and she grabbed a mug from the shelf. Maybe she could tell everyone that not having turkey was some sort of statement? Like a statement for…environmentalism? The Doctor picked up the glass of water she’d dyed earlier and held it up to the light.

“Do people like red water now? Is that a fad?”

“I was trying to knock up some vitamin water for my aunt. Total waste of time,” she admitted.

“What vitamins?” he asked, pulling the sonic out from his jacket. She watched him curiously.

“No idea. Healthy ones?” He made a few adjustments to the sonic and sent a few pulses at the glass, then flicked the screwdriver open and scrutinized it. 

“Well, you’ve got some vitamin C in there now, at least.” Marlene rounded the corner.

“Are you seriously trying to _make_ vitamin water?” Clara looked nervously at the screwdriver, but Marlene didn’t seem to notice it. “Just throw some syrup in there—she won’t know the difference. Or give her some dang water and tell her to deal with it.”

“Wait—there’s _sugar_ in vitamin water?” Clara asked her cousin incredulously.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then why’s it called vitamin water?!”

“I dunno—marketing?” Clara pulled out a chair and sat down weakly.

“Alright, I’m going to call it. This is clearly unsustainable,” the Doctor announced, deftly stowing the screwdriver in his jacket. “We need reinforcements.”

“What do you have in mind?” Marlene asked crisply. “Shops are all closed. All the good ones, at least—maybe at this point we _should_ be considering gas stations.”

“Oh, we don’t need shops,” the Doctor said, his face lighting up dangerously. “We need the big guns.”

“Is this a _good_ idea, Doctor,” Clara said warningly, “or an exciting one?” He leaned around the back of her chair in a way that could only be described as raffish.

“Definitely both.” He gave her collar the slightest tug. Absurdly, she felt her cheeks go hot. Then he spun around the table and out the kitchen door. 

“It’s very rarely both!” she called uselessly after him. 

Marlene coughed in a way that sounded strangely like the words “three days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	16. the blurry lines go on forever

It felt strangely comforting to know that the Doctor was out somewhere. Doing…something. Even though the most likely scenario was that he’d gotten distracted and was off inventing the hot toddy or saving Neanderthals from space boggans. Part of her kept being slightly piqued about whoever it was he thought the big guns were. Madame Vastra? River Song? Kate Middleton?? She wished she could find some subtle way to ask if he’d left through the front door or if he’d just gone upstairs and disappeared.

It wasn’t as though she could do much about it. She was out in the midst of everything now—Gran had gotten ahold of her and sat her down on the sofa because, as she’d insisted, it was Christmas and that meant spending time with family, not just fetching them snacks. Steve and his crazy fiancé had arrived at last, and everyone was in that sweet spot, about two drinks in and past the polite chit-chat about what everyone was up to and onto offering serious career advice or recounting embarrassing childhood stories. It felt strangely cozy to explain the newest curriculum changes to her Uncle Charlie while her dad made ominous pronouncements about the state of British education. Almost as though there weren’t still two hours left to go on the pudding and her family wasn’t under the impression that she was an irresponsible sex maniac.

She found her attention wandering when her dad and Uncle Charlie got into a debate about teacher unions, and she noticed that her Aunt Belinda seemed to be organizing some sort of cabal in the corner with Steve and his fiancé Adeline. 

“I don’t want to say that you’re lucky to have missed him,” Aunt Belinda was whispering, “but I will say that your timing is impeccable.” Clara realized with a sort of wry inevitability that they could only be talking about the Doctor.

“I just wish you’d’ve let us give you a ride, Belinda!” Adeline whispered back solicitously. “But I know, I know; I understand your commitment to getting here as soon as you possibly could, for the sake of family.” Clara restrained herself from rolling her eyes. 

“It really was unbelievable. He immediately took control of the room, insulted almost everyone, and then asked if anyone knew any good yo-yo tricks,” Aunt Belinda continued, as if she were revealing developments in some juicy political scandal.

“He asked me if I was the head of the family because I ‘looked the grumpiest,’” Aunt Jude volunteered crabbily from nearby. Steve nodded solicitously.

“What was it you said about him, Peter?” Aunt Belinda said, tapping on her son’s arm. Peter shrugged, barely looking up from his phone.

“I dunno. Dad said he had ‘some doubts about his credentials,” he replied distractedly.

“Right, because he was filling Charles’s head with the most insufferable nonsense about ancient Egypt.”

“What are you guys on about?” Uncle Joel chimed in. “I liked him.” Clara felt her mouth twist, torn between contrition and amusement.

“I don’t want to say it was as bad as the naked disaster Christmas,” Aunt Belinda continued, ignoring him, “but I will say that it was _quite_ uncomfortable.” Adeline put a hand on her arm.

“Well, what matters is that it’s over,” she said comfortingly.

As if on cue, Clara heard a telltale boom from up above. Almost involuntarily, she hopped up.

“What was _that_?” Gran asked, craning her neck. Clara felt an irrepressible smile coming on.

“Big guns,” she pronounced expectantly. There were a few bangs and a crash from above, then:

“There’s a _lot_ of stuff in your room, Miss Oswald!” Clara felt her eyes widen as Courtney Woods barged down the stairs clutching a veritable pile of packages that smelled strongly and deliciously of grease.

“The day of the mince pie and turkey is over,” the Doctor pronounced from behind her, balancing an even bigger cluster of packages. Clara tripped her way compulsively to the stairs to make sure they didn’t drop anything.

“Happy Christmas, Miss!” Courtney said in greeting, looking like she’d just had the time of her life. “Did you know that London looks like a giant spider web from above?” Clara grabbed as many of the boxes from her as she could.

“I _did_. Incidentally, do your parents know you’re here?” 

“Can’t get in trouble on Christmas, Miss,” Courtney said confidently, spilling her load of boxes out on the coffee table.

“Today is the day of the samosa, the fish and chips, and the cinnamon twist,” the Doctor announced, setting his pile neatly on the ground. “No need for thanks,” he added magnanimously. Her family had ceased chattering and seemed to just be watching with a mix of affront and wonder.

“How did they—did they _crawl in_ on the fire escape?” Adeline murmured, scandalized. 

“Did he say samosas?” Aunt Jude asked with interest.

“Doctor, Courtney’s _parents_?” Clara hissed, transferring the pile from the floor to the coffee table.

“Oh, don’t be so twitchy; they’re fine—told them it was part of an inspection. They seemed surprisingly interested in getting her out of the house.”

“Miss Oswald, I just spent a _lot_ of money,” Courtney said triumphantly, already cracking open a platter of steaming chips. Peter grabbed a package of his own.

“Oh yes—on a related note, you owe Courtney eighty-two pounds,” the Doctor added breezily. Clara put a hand to her forehead and turned back to the room at large with as much presence of mind as she could muster. 

“Alright, everyone—I’ll grab some utensils, but feel free to enjoy!” she announced in her best hostess voice. “All part of the plan,” she added brightly.

“Oh man, this is like a hundred Airheads,” Charles said, digging into one of the plastic bags. “Awesome!” 

“Joel, pass me a samosa,” Aunt Jude ordered happily. Clara watched in disbelief as her family congregated around the coffee table. She edged back to where the Doctor was leaned neatly against the stair rail.

“Thank you,” she told him sincerely. He crossed his arms, as if determined to be gruff.

“For what?”

“You know. For saving Christmas and all that.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said inscrutably. She kissed him impulsively on the cheek.

“Mind you, this whole mess was still your fault in the first place.”

~~~

Somehow, the pile of convenience store fare that Courtney had curated made everything feel a lot more like Christmas. Aunt Belinda insisted she didn’t need anything and then ate all the chips from her husband’s plate, Courtney and Marlene managed to find some holiday crackers in a closet, and Aunt Jude was, for once, pleased. There was a minor hubbub and a round of toasts and hugs when Steve and his fiancé announced that they were, in fact, expecting, and also that they were leaving early. Marlene insisted that the pudding actually had turned out well. Clara and her dad exchanged presents, and he was so pleasantly surprised she had managed to get him the right kind of automatic drill that he recruited Uncle Joel to fix a wobbly leg on the dining room table. Charles, Peter and Uncle Charlie got fiercely involved in some sort of medical disaster strategy game they had brought and even roped the Doctor into playing. Gran was delighted to just sit with Clara on the loveseat and get a bit maudlin.

“Miss, did you know your pantry light’s blue?” Courtney asked, running behind the couch and pounding up the stairs. “Do you have any video games? I’m going to try on some of your clothes.” 

“You’ve got _half an hour_ , Courtney!” Clara called after her.

“Oh, let her be,” Gran said indulgently.

“She’s going to be impossible to get home,” Clara muttered knowingly. Marlene skirted the couch with her third glass of wine and sat companionably on the floor, leaning on Clara’s knee.

“You _teach_ that girl? How on earth do you keep her from tearing apart the classroom?” Clara smiled ruefully.

“Very specific and practical threats,” she answered honestly. 

“Well I think she’s lovely,” Gran volunteered, clearly in the mood to dole out praise to all.

Something of a fracas was developing at the coffee table, where the boys were clustered around their strategy game. 

“But you’re the medic!” Charles was insisting from his pillow beside the table. “It’s your character power!”

“Saving individuals at this point is useless,” the Doctor said in a tone Clara knew all too well. “If you want the slimmest chance of success here, you need to follow my lead and focus on curing the diseases.”

“But it’s your _power_!” Charles insisted again in disbelief.

“We have a global catastrophe on our hands, and I’m supposed to run around treating symptoms and passing out lollypops?!” 

“Clara _did_ say you weren’t a medical doctor, right?” Uncle Charlie put in somewhat nervously. Marlene snorted from beside Clara’s knee.

“You sure know how to pick ‘em.” Clara shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“No one said anything about picking,” she hedged. 

“But he is your _type_ , dearie” Gran put in delicately. Clara just blinked at her. 

“I’m sorry?” Gran tilted her head and tapped lightly on her knee as she thought.

“It may be an odd connection, I know, but he’s a bit like that strange Swedish lad you brought last year—what was his name again…“

“ _Oh_ ,” Clara said heavily. “I think you’ll find that to be more of an unfortunate coincidence than anything else.”

“And even when you were little, you know,” Gran continued knowingly, “you were forever bringing home the oddest boy on the playground.”

“I was not,” Clara responded faintly.

“Your mother always worried about those strange little ones, you know. But I told her you knew how to pick ‘em. And you did.” Clara just looked at her, mystified. “I remember when you went to the dance with that boy from the rowing team, sweet and handsome as can be, and head over heels for you, and you know what you told me the next day?”

“That he was a great dancer?” Clara offered hopefully.

“You told me, eating one of those cucumber sandwiches that you liked so much—I’ll never forget it, you coming over the day after the dance—you told me he was perfectly boring,” Gran recounted, smiling to herself.

“That was _not_ my fault,” Clara sputtered. “You’d understand if you had to spend three hours in the school gym with him.” 

“Sounds about right,” Marlene put in amusedly. “Though I wouldn’t really call Danny odd.”

“Oh, no,” Gran said with a sudden wistfulness. “He was quite the special young man.” Clara felt a shiver of pain even as she was grateful to them for talking about him normally. She wondered what he would’ve thought about the events of that day. What he would’ve thought about the events of last night was a universe of guilt she hadn’t even begun to explore. She realized that her grandmother was looking at her, misty eyed. “You’re doing so, so well, you know,” she told her. Clara blinked rapidly, determined not to cry. “But you’re still so tense, dearie. Remember at the Yule log, how we always say what our present to ourselves is? Maybe yours should be to just…let go.”

~~~

She felt a familiar sort of hollowness, watching her family members leave, one by one. Relief as well, of course, but also that dull, expansive ache. The Doctor had disappeared much earlier, ostensibly to wrangle Courtney back home. Or possibly to take her to Mars. For once, Clara didn’t worry about it.

She sat on the edge of the couch in her dark living room. She wished she’d put up Christmas lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic


	17. when i was running wild

He found her on the rooftop, all bundled up to watch the snow. It would’ve surprised him, or at least an earlier version of him, if he had known he’d come here so immediately, so instinctively. Normally he would’ve been desperate to jettison off, telling himself that if he developed some sort of moral compunction about coming back he could still do so whenever he liked, that she wouldn’t be the wiser if he were a few months older. He was never the type to linger, to clean up. That was for the people who belonged. He was always, inevitably the stranger.

But keeping away from her was impossible. He was taut, drumming on the console, pacing along the railing even as the TARDIS spun her way back around the moon to London.

So he found her on the rooftop, like he’d never learned anything from his mistakes. Like this snow was the first he’d ever seen.

“You came back,” she told him, hugging herself with cold.

“It’s a pretty homey timeline. I’m starting to like it.” She looked self-contained, content, but he could tell she was studying him. He held still and listened to the snow pattering on the roof around them. It was one of those snows that pattered. “That was not a positive experience, by the way,” he added. “They’re all terrors.” Her lips curved into what he knew would’ve been a smile, if she’d let it be.

“You do know it’s the 27th, don’t you?” She tossed him her cellphone—he caught it automatically and felt his hearts kickstart. He blinked furiously at the date, the animated second hand sliding along with a menacing invariability.

“So it is,” he said inadequately. She seemed to study him, her hands stuffed back into her coat.

“You missed a killer curry.”

“Figure of speech or sentient food?” he asked, stalling.

“I’m going to defer to your expertise on that one.” He gingerly held out the phone for her to take back. This would’ve been a lot easier if she weren’t in that damn coat. A soft, seafoam blue, slightly too big for her—more of a raincoat than anything else, like she’d grabbed it in her haste to get out into the snow. That coat was killing him. Out of the coat. Out of the coat would be better.

“This is bad, isn’t it?” he asked carefully. She seemed to consider it, that almost-smile still there in the corner of her mouth.

“Hard to stay mad when you look so stricken.” She tilted her head. “You were dependable, there at the party. A rude sort of dependable, but it counts. I should’ve known it was coming, that you would snap back into spacey.” He reached for her and then corralled his hand back. Contemplated those two big, small words he’d contemplated for so long— _let go_. He watched her face, felt the twisting fabric of time around them.

“Clara,” he began, not knowing how to say any of the things that were jangling around in his gut. He rubbed a hand through his hair. “Do you think…you could get out of that coat?”

“What?” She wasn’t actually confused. She was bemused. Bemused up there on the roof, hands in her pockets, her hair dotted tenderly with snow.

“Nothing.” He shook his head to clear it, his hearts still annoyingly overactive. “There’s a tricky bit to setting the coordinates—you’d probably need the console in front of you for me to explain it all, but there’s a lot more maths and guesswork than you’d think. And I probably rely more on the TARDIS than I should for some of the more finicky equations—“ She stepped toward him.

“That preposterous spotty shirt.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “That should be the first to go.” Her eyes were dancing. He felt a familiar sort of need in the pit of his stomach, a fiery awakening, his hands itching. He tried to control it with skepticism, to remind himself that she could do better, that there was always an ending, to recite the litany of reasons why he shouldn’t—shouldn’t be pulling her roughly toward him, shouldn’t be tugging on her snow-flecked hair, his throat constricting with her smile, shouldn’t be finding her mouth again, wondering if humans could taste this the way he could, could feel the smallest of her shudders. His efforts were unilaterally unsuccessful. He pressed his hand into her shoulder, felt the edge of her tongue, said her name aloud, roughly, his face in her hair. He should’ve seen it coming, but when she whispered his it was a shock to the system—her breath on the edge of his jawline, her mouth trailing down his neck—the last fragments of his self-denial shattering like so many baubles at the reality of her. He pulled her to him until there was no space in between, picked her up, just a bit—she laughed in his ear and slid a hand under his belt, broke away and tugged him toward the stairs leading back inside.

He was successful in one respect, at least. The coat came off first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are from my [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/iamlordkellia/playlist/6erASKHSJzRACM4xD4mUpz) for the fic
> 
> If you've been with me along this whole journey, hats freaking off to you. I started this just after Death in Heaven, thinking it would be pretty much a one-shot that I could finish before the Christmas episode...ha. There were chapters that felt like I was chiseling out of freaking stone, as well as chapters that came suspiciously easily--either way, writing this has been so dang rewarding. So _thank you_ for reading, and I'd love to hear any and every reaction in the comments. Heaven knows what I'll be doing with my free time now.


End file.
